. this means that the liquidity injection is restrained by a policy decision. last autumn, we changed that. as the demand for liquidity by individual institutions expanded abnormally and markets dramatically ceased to allocate liquidity, we have turned that practice around. we have been determining the lending rate – at a very low level – and we stand ready to fill any shortage of liquidity that might occur at that interest rate for maturities of up to six months. this means that we currently act as a surrogate for the market in terms of both liquidity allocation and price - setting. 2 ) the second building block of our new approach is our large list of assets that we take as collateral. this list was already very large before the crisis, but we have enlarged it even further and now accept an even wider range of securities as collateral. government securities account for only 44 % of the nominal value of securities on the list. the rest are private securities. in contrast to many other central banks, the ecb already intermediated private paper before the crisis and we have even strengthened this aspect in the crisis by accepting an even wider range of private paper. the total value of these securities, which are 45, 000 in number, is currently €12. 2 trillion. this amounts to 86 % of all debt securities issued in euros and to 130 % of gdp in the euro area. this very ample eligibility of collateral has dramatically eased banks ’ liquidity constraints during the crisis and, ultimately, it has encouraged them to extend new credit or continue rolling over maturing loans. 3 ) the first two building blocks offer unlimited refinancing against a very wide range of collateral. but they can only reach the financial system if they are coupled with the third building block, namely the very large number of counterparties that have always been able to take part in our refinancing operations. even before the crisis, 1, 700 counterparties fulfilled all relevant criteria. this number was higher at the time than for the other major central banks. following the changes to our operational framework in october 2008, this number rose further. currently 2, 200 credit institutions in the euro area have the opportunity to refinance themselves with us, and for most of the remaining 4, 300 credit institutions it would not be a problematic to become eligible. for example, in march 2009, 750 counterparties actually made use of this opportunity, compared with 450 in july 2007. this structural feature of our operational framework has been instrumental since

##red is that, apart from need alone, there would be certain other factors such as ( i ) willingness of customers to embrace customer service methods and innovations, ( ii ) level of comfort while using an advanced technique including technological platforms, and ( iii ) cost that service providers incur to put in place an advanced technique to attract customers. prominent examples of such innovations used in the banking industry, which came to be embraced by more customers willingly with passage of time include micr technology, electronic payment systems viz. ecs, eft, neft, nfs, cts, various type of plastic cards etc. these products and innovations were primarily supply driven with a purposeful push by regulators themselves. these products were rolled out and banks were encouraged to make use of these products to render better, faster, safer and secure services to their customers. thus, at times, in the larger interests of customers and the financial world, certain initiatives have to be pushed forward by authorities and a need created for them. we could, in the same vein, cite financial inclusion as an example, that has been extensively driven by the regulators and the government of india to substantiate the above point. here is thus a classic case of customer need that is “ identified ” ( inclusive banking ), targeted ( publicity and outreach exercises, financial literacy initiatives ), implemented ( usage of business correspondents, face to face interactions, exhibitions and fairs to propagate the habit of using and operating bank accounts ) and innovated ( technology based transfers of funds to accounts [ ebt ] and the entire “ aadhar ” exercise to uniquely identify individuals and embed the same in opening / operation of bank accounts by customers ). that also leads us firmly to the premise that, perhaps in contemporary times, technology at the right time and juncture will help in furthering the cause of customer service. is technology the panacea to all customer service challenges? mostly yes, since technology speeds up ease of access of customers to service providers, enables easier communication and possibly also speeds up operations. however, there is an interesting and contrasting evidence that i choose to draw from one of the examples adduced by shri g padmanabhan, executive director in the reserve bank of india, who made a telling comment on the number of mobile banking accounts that had been opened in india. while the number seemed staggering and really impressive, a comparison with the number of bank accounts opened in india revealed that the former was but a relatively