to the long period during which we maintained rates at the level of 2 %, from july 2003 up to december 2005. a period, by the way, during which we had made no pre - commitment to maintain rates at this historically low level during a “ considerable period of time ”. on the contrary, the governing council had made it crystal clear that we could change rates at any time during 2004 and 2005 11 and the markets had pretty well understood that posture. my understanding of our decision - making during this period was that it was sometimes a very close call as regards the balance of risks to price stability stemming from the economic analysis. we experienced two periods, around the turn of 2003 / 2004 and around mid 2005 – before the slight recovery of early 2004 was perceived and when it became clear that this start of recovery had aborted – where the balance of risks to price stability from the economic analysis was starting in our minds to slightly tilt on the downside. on behalf of the governing council i made clear during these two periods, in the questions and answers of the press conferences, that all our options were open, including a decrease of rates. if this option did not materialise, it was in my understanding because the monetary analysis was not only not confirming the downward risks to price stability suggested by the economic analysis but was tilting in the other direction. we maintained rates at the level of 2 % and again, with the benefit of hindsight, that decision seems to me clearly vindicated. my third example refers to the recent sequence of policy rate increases. in december 2005, when we first increased policy rates, many commentators judged our move premature against the background of a seemingly fragile economic recovery. in fact, at that time the signals coming from the economic analysis were not yet so strong. but the continued expansion of money and credit through the course of 2005 gave an intensifying indication of increasing risks to medium - to longer - term price stability which played fully their role in our decision to start increasing policy rates in late 2005. in retrospect, the strength of the economic recovery unfolding in the course of 2006 has also shown that our decision was well timed. without our thorough monetary analysis, we could have been in danger of falling behind the curve. your last question referred to the communication challenges related to monetary analysis. we have consistently communicated the results of our monetary analysis and any uncertainty surrounding it to the public. the conference paper by fischer, lenza, pill and reichlin helps in this respect.

to achieve a similar effect on the rates banks apply to corporate loans. moreover, lending rates to nfcs fell by some 110 – 140bps in major vulnerable member states, suggesting that the pass - through of the ecb ’ s policy stance has become stronger in those countries that were hit hardest by the crisis and where economic slack was concentrated. this decline in fragmentation can be in part explained by the effects of the tltros. evidence from the bidding behaviour of banks confirms that tltros participation is frequently followed by a compression in lending rates. that is linked to tltro borrowers scaling back their recourse to more expensive wholesale funding, in particular unsecured, which has created scope for banks to reduce lending rates. the transmission of the improvement in banks ’ funding conditions to lower bank lending rates has been further empowered by an increase in lender competition for good credit spurred by our measures. the app has reinforced this fall in bank lending rates, too, by putting strong downward pressure on sovereign yields and thereby reducing the attractiveness of sovereign securities holdings relative to loans. indeed, alongside the direct impact of tltros on bank lending bis central bankers ’ speeches conditions, staff analysis finds that the app has had an indirect effect on bank lending conditions through its marked effect on long - term government bond yields. 1 this indirect effect has been further reinforced by the beneficial impact of lower long - term yields on the macroeconomic outlook and hence on the credit component embedded in lending rates. with bank lending rates lower, the volume of loans to nfcs is now recovering in the euro area as a whole as well. in may last year, before the announcement of the credit easing measures, loans to nfcs contracted at an annual rate of 2. 9 % in the euro area as a whole. since july 2015, however, the year - on - year contraction has stopped and loans have started to grow at a very modest rate just above zero. as a result, fewer small and medium - sized companies ( smes ) report that credit has been a limiting factor for their businesses. in fact, the last results of the survey on the access to finance of enterprises ( safe ), conducted in april this year, show that “ access to finance “, which was considered the dominant concern of smes in 2012, is now considered the least important problem. “ finding customers ” is instead still a primary source of concern for smes. these results mask some heterogeneity : in the major