When you talk about large-scale asset purchases, which assets do you mean, exactly? To be really effective, bearing in mind the limited size of the private capital market in Europe, this type of programme is likely to include mainly government bonds. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  The new longer-term loans to banks are conditional on them granting credit.
Don’t you think they will use them to purchase sovereign bonds as in the past? They could do it to invest their liquidity on a temporary basis before finding a permanent home for it. The banks are aware that it is not wise to be over-exposed to sovereign debt.