The central bank has a role of lender of last resort: it generally oversees the payment system, it has the ability to inject liquidity into the markets in general or into specific dysfunctional sectors of the markets and, in many instances, it is responsible for the micro supervision of banks.
Borrowing rates and the exchange rate  -4-  Increases in the policy rate have raised borrowing rates for households and businesses (Chart 1). The average five-year variable mortgage rate rose from 1.5% to 5.9% between January 2022 and January 2023, and the average fiveyear fixed mortgage rate rose from 2.8% to 5.1% over the same period.