The ECB however faced a conflict between trying to achieve, on the one hand, ample liquidity conditions and smaller fluctuations of short-term interest rates, and on the other hand, to maintain an active interbank market for short maturities. Indeed, these second-wave measures were characterised by a major increase in the intermediation role of the ECB with respect to interbank money markets.
Notably, the average activity in the overnight segment of the money market (which had increased after the failure of Lehman Brothers because of the replacement of longer-term lending by the rolling-over of shorter-maturity loans) declined by around 40%.