The history of central banks and the European banking union When we look at the history of central banks, contributing to financial stability was one of their roles in most countries, although to varying degrees.1 Even when central banks were assigned a relatively narrow mandate, such as that of inflation targeting in recent years, they often played a decisive part as soon as financial instability struck.
Let me now take a closer look at three upcoming decisions: first, the purchase programmes; second, interest rate policy; and third, refinancing.