However, while collateral scarcity has become a concern for many euro area banks, this does not seem to be the case in other regions. The average amount of eligible collateral for Eurosystem liquidity operations was € trillion during the second quarter of this year.
However, only € trillion was put forward as collateral 4 by counterparties to be used in our liquidity operations that came to an average outstanding amount of around € trillion (see Chart 1). This shows that, despite the fears of collateral scarcity in the euro area, there is some leeway in collateral availability. Naturally, this aggregate view masks country differences.