Central bank liquidity provision This brings me to the second factor, namely central bank liquidity provision, which influences the effective pass-through of monetary policy decisions to money market rates and financing conditions more broadly. The relation between excess liquidity and overnight money market rate dispersion has also changed since the global financial crisis. Prior to 2015, higher levels of excess liquidity tended to lower the dispersion of money market rates (Slide 6). After 2015, increases in dispersion also occurred in periods of ample and rising excess liquidity. https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2020/html/ecb.sp201123~8d9573b1b1.en.html  3/7  24/11/2020  Shifting tides in euro area money markets: from the global financial crisis to the COVID-19 pandemic  There are several reasons for this changing relationship. Prior to 2015, central bank liquidity provision and the associated Eurosystem balance sheet expansion were driven by the need to restore an impaired monetary policy transmission mechanism, caused by heightened market stress during the financial and sovereign debt crises. During the global financial crisis, when the unsecured interbank market came under stress, banks turned to the central bank to obtain liquidity. The Eurosystem essentially assumed the liquidity-providing role of the private market. During the sovereign debt crisis in the euro area, banks once again increased their demand for central bank liquidity. The provision of central bank liquidity also stimulated the supply of liquidity in the private market, especially to banks located in the periphery. [16] The optimal design of central bank liquidity policies is an important research question, which is examined in the conference paper by Robatto (2020).

24/11/2020  Shifting tides in euro area money markets: from the global financial crisis to the COVID-19 pandemic  SPEECH  Shifting tides in euro area money markets: from the global financial crisis to the COVID-19 pandemic         Speech by Isabel Schnabel, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at the ECB Conference on Money Markets, 23 November 2020 Frankfurt am Main, 23 November 2020 I would like to welcome you warmly to our virtual ECB Conference on Money Markets. [1] This conference offers an excellent platform to facilitate the exchange between academic experts on money markets and policy makers. The conference papers address some of the most topical research questions with respect to money markets and will thus provide valuable input for the implementation of our monetary policy. Money markets are a cornerstone of the financial system. [2] Banks, non-bank financial institutions[3] and non-financial corporations all rely on money markets for their short-term funding, liquidity management and collateral needs. As a result, dislocations in money markets can severely undermine the stability of our financial system. Due to their central role as a source of short-term funding, money markets are also crucial for the implementation and transmission of our monetary policy. Money market rates serve as operational targets for central banks and also as benchmarks for the pricing of credit, thereby directly affecting financing conditions in the real economy.