began, smes across europe turned to banks to meet their liquidity needs – and it was vital that a cheap and elastic supply of credit was available. 3 / 8 this is where the ecb stepped in. we monitor smes ’ access to finance very closely, including through a special europe - wide survey. and we took a series of measures specifically designed to help channel credit to firms in need. first, we launched our pandemic emergency purchase programme ( pepp ), which helped stabilise financial markets. that was crucial to ensure that bank lending rates did not tighten suddenly, since bank loans are priced off sovereign borrowing costs. second, we recalibrated our targeted longer - term refinancing operations ( tltro iii ), lending to banks at the lowest rate we have ever offered, but only on the condition that they used the funds to lend to firms. banks have taken up €1. 7 trillion in these operations so far. to access that liquidity, banks have to provide collateral, so we also decided to make loans to smaller businesses and the self - employed eligible as collateral for our operations. this encourages banks to grant loans to smes and refinance them by borrowing from the ecb. in parallel, our supervisory arm ensured that there were no prudential barriers to banks acting quickly, which freed up €120 billion in bank capital for new lending. and fiscal authorities complemented our efforts, making available wide - ranging loan guarantees and other liquidity support measures – equalling close to 20 % of euro area gdp. this was crucial to mitigate the higher credit risk banks face when lending to smes during a recession. as a result, from march to may last year, bank lending to euro area firms rose by the largest amount on record. and it was smes that benefited the most from both cheap and abundant credit. 4 / 8 lending rates on very small loans – which are a proxy for lending to smes – declined substantially, with firms able to borrow at the lowest rates ever recorded – below 2 %. [ 10 ] and, since march, €730 billion in new small loans have been granted to smes in the euro area, including €138 billion to smes in germany. our policies were key to achieving that outcome. banks taking part in our tltros saw a considerable increase in their credit growth, with loans rising by over €400 billion in the year up to september. and this dove

##tailed with government loan guarantees to funnel credit to smes, which received more than 70 % of all the guaranteed loans granted. the upshot is that more firms have been protected and more jobs have been saved. without the ecb ’ s policies, we estimate that over one million more people would have lost their jobs. but we are not out of the woods yet. with the tremendous progress made on vaccine technology, we can now see the light at the end of the tunnel. but we still cannot see exactly how long that tunnel is. we will continue to face a period of high uncertainty until more people have been vaccinated against the virus. in this setting, it is crucial that the bridge for smes remains in place for as long as needed. the ecb will help ensure that firms and families can access the finance they need to weather this storm – and that they can do so in the confidence that financing conditions will not tighten prematurely. that commitment is the best way to provide certainty to all sectors of the economy and to bring stability back to the euro area swiftly. and this, in turn, is the best contribution we can make to delivering on our mandate of price stability. 5 / 8 as goethe said, “ im idealen kommt alles auf die elans, im realen auf die beharrlichkeit an. ” [ 13 ] reality is currently hard for many firms and the future remains uncertain. and so we will persist and persevere until the pandemic emergency has passed. it will take a team effort to get there – from health authorities, from fiscal authorities and from all of you here. but i can assure you that the ecb will continue to play its part, as we have done since the first days of the crisis. 2. “ an attitude and a conviction ”. see erhard, l. ( 1956 ), 1. european commission ( 2019 ), sme performance review. “ mittelstandspolitik ”, in rustow, a. ( ed. ), der mittelstandische unternehmer in der sozialen marktwirtschaft : wortlaut der vortrage auf der vierten arbeitstagung der aktionsgemeinschaft soziale marktwirtschaft e. v am 17. november 1955 in bad godesberg, ludwigsburg, pp. 51 - 61. 3. simon, h. ( 2012 ),