The conditions for borrowing have become more favourable both for enterprises and households. The dynamic of loans granted in the euro area continues to improve, yet the speed of recovery is low.
Therefore, at the 3 December meeting of the ECB council we decided on several measures: •  to further reduce the overnight deposit facility interest rate to minus 0.30%;  •  to extend the Expanded Asset Purchase Programme to the end of March 2017;  •  to reinvest the principal amounts of the securities purchased within the Expanded Asset Purchase Programme once their term of maturity has set in;  •  to include amongst the purchasable assets also secure, investment grade debt securities emitted by local governments;  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  •  to continue to conduct refinancing operations with a set interest rate and full allotment at least to the end of the last reserve requirement period of 2017.