The credit easing package and expanded APP has been effective too in reducing wholesale funding costs for banks, allowing banks to pass on better funding conditions to their customers. Since summer last year the average cost of borrowing for euro area non-financial corporations has fallen by around 70 bps, and by 90 bps and 110 bps for NFCs in Spain and Italy, respectively. The latest evidence from the July Bank Lending Survey confirms the improvement in credit conditions. During the second quarter of 2015 credit standards continued to ease for firms, and even more so for households. Reflecting the endogenous relationship between credit supply and demand, credit demand also increased among both groups driven mostly by the low level of interest rates. The impact of the expanded APP on bank funding costs has been partially reversed by the recent market repricing. Here, however, the credit easing package and our broader asset purchases could act as complements, in particular the Targeted Long-Term Refinancing Operations. For the APP, the ECB defines the volume of liquidity it would like to inject, but cannot determine the price; for TLTROs, we define the price of the liquidity, but banks determine the volume. One tool can therefore act as an automatic stabiliser for the other. Indeed, as wholesale funding costs for banks have risen, so has the attractiveness of the TLTRO. This substitution effect accounts in particular for the higher participation in the fourth operation by banks in less vulnerable countries.
Mario Draghi: Generation € Students' Award 2018 event Introductory remarks by Mr Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank, Frankfurt, 11 April 2018  Introduction Ladies and gentlemen, and especially dear students, First of all, let me express congratulations to all the students here for reaching this stage of the Generation € Students’ Award competition. It’s an incredible achievement and you should all be proud of yourselves. Bravo! This gathering is an important opportunity for us to continue our dialogue with you. You are the winners of our euro area-wide competition on monetary policy, which is now in its seventh year. The ECB also organises other initiatives to engage with young people. We have the ECB Youth Dialogues and competitions such as the Euro Video Challenge and the young economists’ session at the Sintra conference. Sintra is a conference that we do annually on a variety of themes around monetary policy and macroeconomics. So far, my impression is that it has been a success, but of course I am biased. I am also aware that my colleagues from the national banks organise events and dialogues with students and schools at national level. All this basically tells you one thing: you are very important because you are our future. You are Europe’s future and that’s why the ECB and the national central banks really give you a lot of attention and get a lot from you.