Open market operations

The Eurosystem’s regular open market operations consist of one-week liquidity-providing operations in euro (main refinancing operations, or MROs) as well as three-month liquidity-providing operations in euro (longer-term refinancing operations, or LTROs).

MROs serve to steer short-term interest rates, to manage the liquidity situation and to signal the monetary policy stance in the euro area, while LTROs provide additional, longer-term refinancing to the financial sector.

Non-standard monetary policy measures

Three-year LTROs - In recent years, the regular operations have been complemented by two liquidity-providing long-term refinancing operations in euro with a three-year maturity (maturing on 29 January 2015 and on 26 February 2015), as well as by US dollar liquidity-providing operations.

PELTROs – Pandemic emergency longer-term refinancing operations – On 30 April 2020 the ECB’s Governing Council decided to conduct a series of seven pandemic emergency longer-term refinancing operations (PELTROs) to provide liquidity support to the euro area financial system and ensure smooth money market conditions during the pandemic period. On 10 December 2020 the ECB’s Governing Council decided to offer four additional PELTROs in 2021 to serve as a liquidity backstop to preserve the smooth functioning of the money market during the extended pandemic period.

TLTROs - Targeted longer-term refinancing operations - The targeted longer-term refinancing operations (TLTROs) are Eurosystem operations that provide financing to credit institutions for periods of up to four years. They offer long-term funding at attractive conditions to banks in order to further ease private sector credit conditions and stimulate bank lending to the real economy.

APP - Asset purchases programme - While outright asset purchases have been implemented since 2009 under several programmes, the asset purchase programme was launched in October 2014 with the objective of sustaining growth across the euro area and consistently with the aim of achieving inflation rates below, but close to, 2% over the medium term.

PEPP - Pandemic emergency purchase programme - On 18 March 2020 the ECB’s Governing Council announced a new pandemic emergency purchase programme with an envelope of €750 billion, to last until the end of 2020. The temporary programme was designed as a response to the coronavirus emergency to address the unprecedented situation faced by our monetary union.

Calendars

• Consolidated calendar of Eurosystem tender operations last update: 29 April 2021
• Indicative calendar for the Eurosystem's regular tender operations
• Indicative calendar of reserve maintenance periods
• Indicative calendar for the Eurosystem's tender operations in USD
• Revised indicative calendar for TLTRO-III, published 1 February 2021
• Indicative calendar for PELTROs

Please refer to the ad hoc communications for the latest information on schedules.

Tender procedures

Main refinancing operations

History

• History of open market operations since 1999
• History of ad hoc communications related to monetary policy implementation