Since its inception, the Eurosystem has always accepted a wide range of assets as collateral, including public but also private assets. This has proved to be a stabilising factor in the current turmoil, as it ensured that banks had a wide array of collateral at their disposal to access the Eurosystem’s operations.
In view of the difficult situation on the money markets, we decided to temporarily expand the list of eligible collateral until the end of 2009. At the same time, in order to protect the Eurosystem against financial risks, we have made refinements to our risk control framework.