Accordingly, the set of measures implemented by the Eurosystem – our enhanced credit support programme – were designed with the objective of providing support to the banking sector by: (a) helping the functioning of the money market, (b) easing funding conditions for banks, and (c) improving market liquidity in segments of the private debt securities market (specifically, the market for covered bonds) that represent an important source of funding for euro area banks.
Through these measures, the ECB aimed to mitigate the risk of systemic illiquidity in the euro area banking sector and to guarantee a steady flow of banking credit to euro area households and firms. 2  BIS Review 141/2009  Impact of measures implemented by the ECB Let me start with the impact of our measures on the Eurosystem balance sheet.