Consolidated financial statement of the Eurosystem as at 20 April 2012

Items not related to monetary policy operations

In the week ending 20 April 2012 gold and gold receivables (asset item 1) remained unchanged.

The net position of the Eurosystem in foreign currency (asset items 2 and 3 minus liability items 7, 8 and 9) decreased by EUR 0.1 billion to EUR 227.9 billion on account of customer and portfolio transactions and US dollar liquidity-providing operations (see below).

The liquidity-providing transactions were conducted by the Eurosystem in connection with the temporary reciprocal currency arrangement (swap line) that the European Central Bank has with the Federal Reserve System.

The holdings by the Eurosystem of marketable securities other than those held for monetary policy purposes (asset item 7.2) decreased by EUR 18.5 billion to EUR 328.5 billion. Banknotes in circulation (liability item 1) fell by EUR 4.6 billion to EUR 869.7 billion. Liabilities to general government (liability item 5.1) decreased by EUR 3.5 billion to EUR 155.3 billion.

Items related to monetary policy operations

The Eurosystem’s net lending to credit institutions (asset item 5 minus liability items 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5 and 4) decreased by EUR 38.8 billion to EUR 152 billion. On Wednesday, 18 April 2012, a main refinancing operation of EUR 55.4 billion matured and a new one of EUR 51.8 billion was settled. On the same day, fixed-term deposits in an amount of EUR 214 billion matured and new deposits in the same amount were collected.

Recourse to the marginal lending facility (asset item 5.5) was EUR 0.3 billion (compared with EUR 2 billion in the previous week), while recourse to the deposit facility (liability item 2.2) was EUR 775.6 billion (compared with EUR 742.8 billion in the preceding week).

The holdings by the Eurosystem of securities held for monetary policy purposes (asset item 7.1) increased by EUR 0.5 billion to EUR 281.1 billion. This increase was due to the purchases under the second covered bond purchase programme that were settled during the week. Therefore, in the week ending 20 April 2012 the value of accumulated purchases under the Securities Markets Programme amounted to EUR 214.2 billion, while those of the portfolios held under the first and second covered bond purchase programmes totalled EUR 56.8 billion and EUR 10.2 billion respectively. All three portfolios are accounted for on a held-to-maturity basis.

Current accounts of euro area credit institutions

As a result of all transactions, the current account position of credit institutions with the Eurosystem (liability item 2.1) decreased by EUR 35.5 billion to EUR 93.5 billion.

Other issues

In the week ending 20 April 2012, an accounting reclassification took place in order to harmonise the disclosure of the Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) provided by Eurosystem central banks to domestic credit institutions under other claims on euro area credit institutions denominated in euro (asset item 6). This mainly explains the decrease of other securities (asset item 7.2) by EUR 18.5 billion, the decrease of other assets (asset item 9) by EUR 105.6 billion as well as the increase of other claims on euro area credit institutions denominated in euro (asset item 6) by EUR 121.1 billion.