The current pandemic crisis is a case in point.
The measures we have taken since March – most notably the asset purchases under the pandemic emergency purchase programme, or PEPP, and the liquidity provision to banks through targeted longer-term refinancing operations, or TLTROs, – have been crucial in allowing the financial sector to act as a backstop for the euro area economy.4 2/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  They prevented the health crisis from turning into a full-blown financial crisis at a time when markets started to panic and price action became highly destabilising, which could have had dire consequences for society as a whole.