Watching their national financial markets evolve, the national central banks have accumulated a wealth of experience over the decades. At the early stage of monetary union, these markets will still differ substantially.
In order to guarantee nevertheless equal and fair access to central bank liquidity for the large number of the ESCB’s counterparties, the national central banks will assume an indispensable function as intermediaries between the ECB’s monetary policy decisions and the counterparties of the ESCB.