Second, sufficient collateral should be available to counterparties, so that the Eurosystem can provide the amount of liquidity deemed necessary for its monetary policy and payment systems operations. To facilitate this, the Eurosystem accepts a broad range of assets as collateral, which also reflects the variety of practices that had been applied by the National Central Banks of the euro area.
This collateral framework remained unchanged during the recent market tensions. The diversity of eligible collateral had a stabilising effect during the financial market turmoil, allowing counterparties to obtain liquidity from the Eurosystem against adequate collateral. Why did the ECB intervene in money markets? The objective was twofold.