deposits with a 1 - week duration from banks holding more liquidity than needed. in addition, on an extraordinary basis and for a temporary period ( i. e. until the end of 2009 ), the list of assets accepted as collateral in our monetary policy operations has been expanded. as a result of this expansion, banks will be able to post as collateral with the eurosystem some categories of assets available within the euro area that were not eligible before. in addition, we have temporarily lowered the minimum credit rating accepted for marketable and non - marketable instruments ( expect for abss ), while maintaining the requirement that assets must be “ investment grade ”. the temporary expansion of the list of eligible collateral may potentially imply an increase in the risks taken by the eurosystem through its refinancing operations. in order to fulfil the eurosystem ’ s statutory obligation to ensure that its balance sheet remains adequately protected against financial risks across time, adequate risk control measures will continue to be carefully and thoroughly applied to the enlarged collateral set. 4. 2 governments governments all over the world have been involved in interventions designed to provide support to systemically - relevant individual banking institutions. initially, interventions were addressed to address isolated cases of stressed institutions and mainly fell into two categories : ( 1 ) the rescue of troubled individual institutions, whose failure may have given rise to financial instability ; and the ( 2 ) provision of guarantees covering the liabilities of individual institutions under stress. in the us, government support in the form of liability guarantees was extended to non - bank financial institutions – notably, the government - sponsored mortgage agencies freddie mac and fanny mae – whose insolvency may have triggered systemic disruptions worldwide ( though the failure of government guarantees to stabilise the agencies prompted the us government to subsequently take them over ). some governments also announced measures to provide relief to struggling homeowners and made use of traditional fiscal policy tools to stimulate the domestic economies, particularly in countries where the slowdown in housing markets was more significant. more recently, the scope and reach of interventions by governments has broadened, with several countries announcing more general and comprehensive schemes designed to support the entire domestic financial industries rather than individual institutions. the need to develop broader plans for public intervention has become more acute with the intensification of the financial market turmoil and the increasing awareness that the current turmoil has the potential to jeopardise financial stability and, ultimately, macroeconomic stability in the world economy. as part of the

as long as needed. these liquidity - providing operations do not have a direct effect on euro liquidity conditions, but are conducted to address the availability of us dollar funding for euro area banks and aim at improving global funding conditions. it is important to stress that the actions in connection with the taf marked, to my knowledge, the first systematic, multilateral and successful central bank co - operation in the money market field, a market which is central to the implementation of a central bank ’ s monetary policy. i believe that all of these actions have proved to be effective in easing the tensions at the short - term end of the global money markets and in maintaining control of short - term interest rates in the euro area. i am sure that global money and funding markets will continue to benefit from our very close cooperation. we will carry on working together closely and are prepared to take appropriate steps as needed to address funding pressures. 4. 1. 3 increased financial intermediation before discussing the latest monetary policy decision, i would like to point out that as a result of its enhanced liquidity interventions in euro and usd over the last fifteen months, the eurosystem has significantly increased its involvement in financial intermediation in the euro area. indeed, the eurosystem has moved from the situation before the start of the turmoil in which it provided banks only with as much liquidity as necessary to implement its monetary policy stance, with the intermediation being performed by the market, to the present condition in which it effectively intermediates liquidity flows among banks in order to mitigate dysfunctions of money markets. the increased intermediation role assumed by the eurosystem during this period of turbulence has contributed to the stabilisation of short - term liquidity conditions, as well as to contain volatility in the very short - term rates ( especially in the overnight rate as measured through the so - called eonia ) and to limit somewhat the volatility in the three - month euribor, even if the behaviour of the money market remains extremely tense. of course, this is not the ideal solution in a market - oriented economy like the euro area and, indeed, the eurosystem looks forward to the reactivation of inter - bank lending and to banks resuming their traditional intermediation activity. however, as long as money markets remain dysfunctional, the eurosystem will continue to provide liquidity as needed in order to ease tensions in the impaired money markets, with a view