far below, is an open question. for many retail customers, exchanging bank deposits for cash will be fairly inexpensive. a safe deposit box can be rented for less than €50 a year. if bank customers choose to withdraw their deposits and hold cash, banks will lose an important part of their funding. this is probably an important reason why banks in countries with negative policy rates are reluctant to set negative deposit rates, particularly for households. if banks hold back on deposit rates, lending rates can only fall to a limited extent before banks ’ earnings are reduced. a lower policy rate will probably have a less - than - normal effect on lending rates, weakening the impact of monetary policy via the demand channel. the policy rate in the uk has been 0. 5 percent for some time. in the bank of england ’ s assessment, a further reduction would not serve any useful purpose. 8 nor has the ecb found it appropriate to reduce the policy rate further, but is prepared to expand its asset purchase programme if necessary. 9 central banks also influence long - term interest rates for monetary policy to work, it must have an effect on more than short - term money market rates. the interest rates that influence inflation and employment are those facing enterprises and households. in economies with well - functioning money and credit markets, a reduction in the policy rate will relatively quickly push down market rates. in recent years, there have been cases where this did not happen. the most serious situation that has arisen occurred after the lehman brothers collapse. the resulting uncertainty led to very high risk premiums. despite substantial policy rate cuts, market rates remained high. bank of england ( 2013 ) : note on negative interest rates for treasury committee. cœure, benoit ( 2015 ), member of the executive board of the ecb : “ how binding is the zero lower bound? ” ( speech given on 18 may 2015 ), european central bank. bis central bankers ’ speeches in response, a number of central banks, particularly the federal reserve and the ecb, intervened directly in those money and credit market segments that had been hardest hit. the federal reserve purchased mortgage - backed securities owned by banks, for example, which improved banks ’ funding conditions and facilitated their credit provision to the broad economy. in norway, the swap arrangement had a similar effect. in the years following the financial crisis, a number of central banks have adopted new measures. the margin for further reductions in the key policy rate has gradually diminished. any further attempts to stimulate the

time we have new projections, we obviously reconsider whether our stance is still appropriate. i would not be carried away by analysts in some institutions who want us to do what they would like, what they would consider as helpful. you can also say that they are lobbying. we are rather immune to these attempts. has the ecb played a role in fanning these hopes? i hope that we were able to explain in plain english what we meant. we review and possibly reconsider our monetary policy stance without giving any indication as to individual measures. now if some people want to sell their favorite measures, they create hype. but it is not the ecb that is creating hype in this respect. don ’ t forget that we have also very clearly said that by march we might see the necessity for technical corrections to our existing program. if it would be a little bit more looked at, what we have actually said, then we would not have been in the situation in december. and we certainly don ’ t want to be in this situation in march again. part of what is perceived as a communication blunder in december came bis central bankers ’ speeches from the fact that too much attention was attached to one or another statements. we are a collective decision - making body. so you cannot extrapolate one person onto 25 people. so if people interpreted the last press conference as signaling a strong increase in stimulus in march, that ’ s incorrect? again, this is misjudging the effects of what we decided in december which are still in the pipeline. after all it is €680 billion, which is more than a third of what we have announced at the beginning. yes, we will continue to have an accommodative monetary policy. yes, we have to reassess our monetary policy stance in view of the deterioration since our december analysis. does this reassessment of the analysis lead to the consequence that there will be the same, or different measures, or confidence that the existing measures will only have to be corrected? i think this is a policy decision that is ahead of us and i don ’ t want to deny that it is possible nor confirm that it has been decided. if the ecb were not to do anything in march and markets were disappointed again, does that pose questions about mr. draghi ’ s power to influence markets in the way that he wants to? you are hypothesizing that nothing will be done, which