These private sector purchases, which also include commercial paper, directly contribute to credit easing for non-financial corporates.1 But since the euro area is traditionally a bank-based economy, measures supporting the liquidity in financial markets were unlikely to prove sufficient. They needed to be accompanied by measures that ensured that financing conditions for small and medium-sized firms would remain equally attractive.
Throughout recent regulatory reforms, the Central Bank was guided by the principle that access to payment services should not discriminate between whether the products originate from banks or from other regulated entities; and that the range of access that users of cash currently enjoy in services should also persist when the products are digitised.