The European Central Bank (ECB) is the central bank of the 19 European Union countries which have adopted the euro. Our main task is to maintain price stability in the euro area and so preserve the purchasing power of the single currency.
The European Central Bank (ECB) is the central bank of the 19 European Union countries which have adopted the euro. Our main task is to maintain price stability in the euro area and so preserve the purchasing power of the single currency.
Economic Bulletin
Summary
While the recovery in global demand and the sizeable fiscal stimulus are supporting global and euro area activity, the near-term economic outlook remains clouded by uncertainty about the resurgence of the pandemic and the roll-out of vaccination campaigns. Persistently high rates of coronavirus (COVID-19) infection and the associated extension and tightening of containment measures continue to constrain economic activity in the short term. Looking ahead, progress with vaccination campaigns and the envisaged gradual relaxation of containment measures reinforce the expectation of a firm rebound in economic activity in the course of 2021. Inflation has picked up over recent months on account of some idiosyncratic and temporary factors and an increase in energy price inflation. At the same time, underlying price pressures remain subdued in the context of significant economic slack and still weak demand.
Liquidity usage in TARGET2
1 Introduction
Real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems typically require large amounts of liquidity to support the settlement of payments on a gross basis.
[2] At the same time, settling on a gross basis
[3] benefits the payment system by reducing credit risk
[4] and, more generally, systemic risk. For these reasons, TARGET2
[5], the Eurosystem’s RTGS system that processes euro-denominated payments in central bank money, also settles payments on a gross basis. To enable participants to optimise the use of liquidity and reduce their liquidity needs, TARGET2 offers a number of features, called liquidity-saving mechanisms.
[6] In addition, when liquidity on their accounts is not sufficient, TARGET2 participants can make use of the intraday credit line (ICL) facility, which is offered by the Eurosystem against eligible collateral and is interest free.
Can consumers’ inflation expectations help stabilise the economy?
By Ioana Duca-Radu, Geoff Kenny and Andreas Reuter
Economists have argued that when interest rates set by policymakers cannot go any lower, the economy can be stabilised if consumers expect the rate of inflation to increase. Yet, the evidence for this stabilising effect has been very mixed. In this article we review new evidence from a monthly survey of over 25,000 individual consumers across the euro area showing that consumers are indeed more ready to spend if they expect inflation to be higher in the future. While generalised in the population, the stabilising effect is stronger when nominal interest rates are constrained at the lower bound.