end of the net asset purchases, and in any case for as long as necessary. this will contribute both to favourable liquidity conditions and to an appropriate monetary policy stance. in this context, let me also mention that we provided additional information on the redemption amounts for each component of the app, as our policy to maintain the stock of our securities holdings and continue to re - invest the proceeds of those securities that come to redemption for an extended period of time has become more important as the size of that portfolio has grown. our website now reports all the details of the expected monthly redemption amounts for the next 12 months. third, on policy rates, we kept them unchanged and reconfirmed that we expect our key interest rates to remain at their present levels for an extended period of time, and well past the horizon of our net asset purchases. this sequenced ordering of the outlook for our net asset purchases and the policy rate path is a central element of our monetary policy at present. the “ well past ” condition that governs the policy rate horizon lays out a critical enabling factor for asset purchases to have their full impact. finally, we decided that our regular refinancing operations would continue to be conducted as fixed - rate tender procedures with full allotment for as long as necessary, and at least until the end of 2019. this will ensure the continued smooth implementation of monetary policy while also 2 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches safeguarding favourable conditions in euro area money markets. as the governing council concluded at the end of its last monetary policy meeting, the monetary policy support that we provide today comes from the combined effect of the additional net asset purchases, the sizeable stock of acquired assets that have been accrued under our asset purchase programme in the past and the forthcoming reinvestments of the maturing securities, and our forward guidance on interest rates. taken together, these measures will preserve the current financing conditions and ensure the ample degree of monetary stimulus that is still necessary for a sustained return of inflation rates towards levels that are below, but close to, 2 %. payment systems and monetary policy implementation let me now turn to the topic of target balances. target23 is the eurosystem ’ s real - time gross settlement system, through which payments in euro can be safely and efficiently processed between banks, both within and across borders. it provides a state - of - the - art payment infrastructure that is used to settle, in central bank money, payments related to a wide variety of transactions

conditionality because the omts are attached to a european financial stability facility / european stability mechanism ( efsf / esm ) programme, thereby ensuring that the member states concerned remain under considerable pressure to implement reforms and maintain fiscal discipline. the omt programme seeks only to reduce unwarranted interest rate spikes. i would like to make it very clear at this point that the omt programme was not aimed at harmonising the financing conditions of the member states. the market mechanism will continue to operate. another important point in this regard is that an efsf / esm programme is a necessary – but not a sufficient – condition for omts. there is no automatic follow - on. the governing council of the ecb will decide independently in each individual case, looking exclusively at the necessity of omts from a monetary policy perspective. second, our omt programme is limited to the short end of the yield curve – i. e. to maturities of between one and three years – as the eurosystem ’ s other monetary policy instruments have also traditionally been aimed at this period. the third distinction between the omts and the smp is the transparency of our actions, through the publication of relevant information on omt interventions. a fourth way in which the programmes differ from one another is that, under the omt programme, we are not only able to buy government bonds, but also to sell them again, and their valuation is based on market prices rather than on final maturity. fifth, we announced that our omt interventions would be ex ante “ unlimited ”. we have no doubt that this strong signal was required in order to convince market participants of our seriousness and decisiveness in pursuing the objective of price stability. at the same time, however, the design of omts makes it clear to everyone that the programme is effectively bis central bankers ’ speeches limited, for one by the restriction to the shorter part of the yield curve and the resulting limited pool of bonds which may actually be purchased. omts – in the event that they are conducted – will not give rise to any inflationary risks. for every euro that the eurosystem spends on government bonds, one euro will be withdrawn from the money supply in the euro area. we already did the same successfully under the smp, which has now come to an end. barely a year after the announcement of omts, the positive effects are obvious, and this development has certainly also been enabled by the reform efforts as a whole