This further cut to the negative deposit facility rate increases the incentive for banks not to hold immobilised surplus liquid balances in their accounts with the Eurosystem. In the non-conventional arena, the ECB has set in train a new long-term refinancing operation explicitly geared to make lending to the private sector more buoyant. These operations, which will be launched from September this year to June 2016, may have a term of up to 4 years, at a very attractive cost for banks: 10 basis points above the main refinancing operations rate, which is equivalent at present to only 0.15%. Given that the aim of new long-term injections is to stimulate bank loans to the non-financial private sector, their availability has been linked to both the stock and the flows of lending extended by banks to households and firms, although loans for house purchase have been excluded from these calculations. The non-conventional measures agreed in September also include two new asset purchase programmes, the details of which will be addressed in the next ECB Governing Council meetings. The Eurosystem may acquire financial instruments derived from securitisations that meet various requirements. They must be simple, transparent and based on loans to households and firms in the euro area. The programme is expected to be able to contribute to reinvigorating the securitisations market, a major market that has been greatly affected by the crisis.
The adjustment in public finances undertaken by the Spanish economy is three-pronged: the gradual reduction in the budget deficit in line with the targets set, the strengthening of the fiscal governance framework and the reform of the pensions system. In light of the budgetary exercise under way, compliance with the fiscal commitments acquired at the European and national level should be the cornerstone of our budgetary policy. Fulfilment of these objectives will allow us to build on the gains in credibility already attained and to turn around the upward trend in the public debt/GDP ratio. Both goals are prerequisites for a durable economic recovery. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  One of the main changes to the institutional framework of Spanish fiscal policy has been the creation and start-up of the Autoridad Independiente de Responsabilidad Fiscal (Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility – IAFR). The IAFR will be playing a most prominent role throughout the budgetary cycle, monitoring compliance with the principle of budgetary stability in the general government sector, in accordance with the provisions of Article 135 of our Constitution and with European regulations. In this way Spain is moving to enhance its economic governance, joining those EU countries – practically all of them – that have this type of agency.