contingent term repo facility ( ctrf ) on 24 march, committing to lend unlimited amounts of sterling at close to bank rate, against a broad range of collateral. these operations, together with the passing of the march quarter end, brought repo rates back to more normal levels ( chart 8 ). by contrast, term libor measures took much longer to subside, in both dollar and sterling markets ( charts 3 and 8 ). in part that reflected the persistent illiquidity in the market for cp, cd and other unsecured bank paper. but that same illiquidity, coupled with the sharp reduction in the size of the market since the gfc, also meant that, throughout the crisis, libor was based on few if any direct underlying transactions ( chart 9 ). 4 that is a wholly unsatisfactory basis for a benchmark that still underpins a substantial share of global libor submissions are classified in three levels. level 1 is ‘ transaction - based ’ submissions — an average of transactions in unsecured deposits and primary issuances of commercial paper and certificates of deposit. level 2 is ‘ transaction - derived ’ data, including information from historical transactions. level 3 is ‘ expert judgement ’ — where a panel bank has insufficient level 1 or 2 transactions, it estimates the rate at which it could fund itself in the unsecured wholesale funding market, based on an approved procedure. further details are available at : www. theice. com / publicdocs / ice _ libor _ methodology. pdf all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / news / speeches corporate borrowing, and underscores the pressing need to complete the transition away from libor by end - 2021. by contrast, volumes underpinning sonia, the market ’ s preferred alternative sterling risk free rate, rose sharply, as investors sought safer havens. chart 9 : 3m £libor submission composition transaction - based transaction - derived expert judgement chart 10 : ccff usage and capacity commercial paper purchases under ccff, less redemptions ccff drawing capacity per cent £ bn ‘ dash for cash ’ oct 19 dec 19 feb 20 source : iba. see footnote 4 in the text for definitions of the data shown. 23 mar 06 apr 20 apr 04 may 18 may source : bank of england. dashed lines show linear interpolation between launch date and first public data release. moment 5 : keeping funding flowing to uk companies although most

close to its policy rate. the rest is monetary history. ten years on, central banks now use a much wider range of tools than just the policy rate in setting monetary policy. once bank rate hit 0. 5 % in march 2009, which at the time was seen as its effective lower bound, the mpc turned to what were then thought of as unconventional monetary policy tools to stimulate demand and help bring inflation back to target. these tools used our balance sheet in new and different ways. and together they account for a large part of the increase in the size of the bank ’ s balance sheet. as part of the mpc ’ s continuing efforts to make our thinking more transparent, we published our estimate of excess supply ( or slack ) in the economy for the first time in the may 2018 inflation report. the last bank rate change to follow this practice was arguably the 50bp cut on october 8th 2008. i say arguably because this cut was itself unconventional : it was coordinated across the major central banks and, due to differing international schedules, actually took place early on a wednesday afternoon rather than the usual thursday at noon. all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / speeches quantitative easing ( qe ) involved buying gilts in exchange for newly - created reserves, via a specially created account called the asset purchase facility ( apf ) which carries an indemnity from the treasury. the goal was to reduce the yield on gilts, and so to reduce yields – and therefore borrowing costs – on other financial assets, which would in turn feed through to support the economy. this created a large additional quantity of central bank reserves – currently £445bn worth – matched by an equally large loan to the apf on our balance sheet. importantly, qe also changed the quantity of reserves from being determined by the quantity demanded by financial institutions to being determined by the quantity supplied by the bank on behalf of the mpc. to accommodate this change, and to deal with the volatility of money market rates which had emerged as liquidity patterns changed, we also changed our framework for controlling interest rates. in 2009 the bank moved from a corridor system, in which banks ’ reserve balances were remunerated at bank rate up to a limited amount, to a floor system, in which we remunerate all balances, no matter how large, at bank rate. as well as qe, the mpc has used the bank ’ s balance sheet