In a nutshell, we allowed banks to borrow funds from the ECB over much longer horizons – of up to four years – and at very attractive rates, on the condition that they would increase their lending to the real economy. We did this through what we call “targeted longer-term refinancing operations”.
And the collateral pledged by banks when borrowing from the ECB (in practice, from the Banque de France) can include credit claims, including loans to SMEs. We also took two other policy decisions. The first was our decision to purchase securities on financial markets, a move known as “quantitative easing” in the parlance of economists.