While poorer groups might need basic savings services and micro-credit to cover production costs and emergency expenses, farmers and farmers’ organisations require larger amounts of credit to finance production, inputs, processing and marketing besides risk mitigation products, for example, insurance for loss of life and assets.
But I would like the current construct, in which final responsibility lies with the ECB Governing Council, to be no more than a transitional solution. Banking supervision should be transferred to an entirely independent body to make the decisions. This is the only way that doubts about the independence of the ECB Governing Council in its monetary policy decisions can be dispelled.