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Maria Dimou
Monetary Policy
- Division
Monetary Analysis
- Current Position
-
Economist
- Fields of interest
-
Financial Economics,Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
- Other current responsibilities
- 2023-
Secretariat of the Monetary Policy Committee Taskforce on banking analysis for monetary policy purposes
- Education
- 2013-2016
M.Sc. in Economics (specialisation in Applied Economic Analysis), Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm, Sweden
- 2008-2012
Ptychion in Public Administration (specialisation in Public Finance), Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Athens, Greece
- Professional experience
- 2021-
Economist - Monetary Analysis Division, Directorate General Monetary Policy, European Central Bank
- 2017-2021
Research Analyst - Monetary Analysis Division, Directorate General Monetary Policy, European Central Bank
- 2016-2019
Research Assistant - Research Centre, Deutsche Bundesbank
- 2015-2016
Research Assistance Trainee - Monetary Policy Research Division, Directorate General Research, European Central Bank
- 20 March 2025
- ECONOMIC BULLETIN - BOXEconomic Bulletin Issue 2, 2025Details
- Abstract
- This box examines euro area credit conditions from the perspective of banks and firms. The analysis uses data from the bank lending survey and the survey on the access to finance of enterprises. By offering qualitative insights into credit supply and demand, these surveys complement hard data in analysing how monetary policy is transmitted to firms through banks. The respective survey findings confirm that the general economic outlook and firm-specific conditions are significant factors affecting credit standards and the availability of bank loans. Although the surveys evaluate bank loan demand from different angles, both surveys indicate subdued demand developments in 2024. Furthermore, the latest data for both surveys, covering the fourth quarter of 2024, signal persistently weak loan demand, despite declining interest rates, and a renewed tightening of bank credit supply to firms in the euro area.
- JEL Code
- E4 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates
E44 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
E5 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit
E51 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Money Supply, Credit, Money Multipliers
E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
G30 : Financial Economics→Corporate Finance and Governance→General
- 20 June 2024
- ECONOMIC BULLETIN - BOXEconomic Bulletin Issue 4, 2024Details
- Abstract
- This box investigates the factors underlying the growing, but still moderate, deterioration in bank credit quality against the backdrop of weak economic activity, rising interest rates and increases in the number of corporate bankruptcies. First, drawing on granular credit register data, we show that banks have actively rebalanced their loan portfolios towards safer assets, potentially curbing a build-up of credit risk on their balance sheets. Second, we explore the possibility that banks exercised greater caution in credit allocation as a result of regulatory considerations, and we assess the impact of bank balance sheet strength and resilience before the start of the recent monetary policy tightening cycle on their credit allocation strategies. Our findings suggest that regulatory pressures are relevant in the reallocation of credit from riskier to safer borrowers, while balance sheet strength and resilience prior to the tightening cycle did not significantly influence credit allocation patterns.
- JEL Code
- E51 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Money Supply, Credit, Money Multipliers
E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
G35 : Financial Economics→Corporate Finance and Governance→Payout Policy
- 9 November 2023
- ECONOMIC BULLETIN - ARTICLEEconomic Bulletin Issue 7, 2023Details
- Abstract
- Since its launch in 2003, the euro area bank lending survey (BLS) has provided valuable early indications for the assessment of bank lending conditions in the euro area. This article reviews the role of the BLS at the ECB over the last 20 years. It highlights that past periods are informative for a better understanding of bank lending conditions in the current monetary policy tightening period and the changing environment in which banks operate. The article also points to the value of the BLS for analysing the impact of unconventional monetary policy measures on bank lending in the euro area, as well as the impact of other measures from supervisory and fiscal authorities. It highlights that both credit risk factors and banks’ balance sheet situation play an important role in the transmission of monetary policy to bank lending conditions, while their actual tightening contribution has varied across historical periods. The article also highlights current challenges facing euro area banks and the need to monitor possible vulnerabilities which may affect the transmission of monetary policy via banks.
- JEL Code
- E4 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates
E44 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
E5 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit
E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
- 26 September 2023
- ECONOMIC BULLETIN - BOXEconomic Bulletin Issue 6, 2023Details
- Abstract
- Banks distribute capital to equity investors either by paying dividends or by buying back shares. Such distributions of capital have ambiguous implications for monetary policy, since these lower banks’ cost of equity by signalling their soundness to investors but also reduce banks’ capital ratios and thus potentially their intermediation capacity. Since the end of the pandemic and the end of ECB Banking Supervision’s recommendation to refrain from or limit payouts, banks in the euro area have distributed capital at a rapid pace. Such distributions have been spearheaded by ambitious buyback programmes, catching up on forgone distributions in previous years, while a further increase in dividends is also likely. Payouts vary greatly across banks in terms of both overall size and composition. Individual banks tend to distribute more capital when they are more profitable and have better asset quality, capital ratios above their announced targets and more liquidity. They also tend to spread distributions over several years. We find that recent payouts have had a positive signalling effect on financial markets. Higher payout commitments have also been associated with lower bank credit supply and higher lending rates, therefore possibly contributing to the transmission of the ECB’s monetary policy tightening impulse so far.
- JEL Code
- E51 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Money Supply, Credit, Money Multipliers
E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
G35 : Financial Economics→Corporate Finance and Governance→Payout Policy
- 22 July 2022
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2682Details
- Abstract
- We assess whether central bank credit operations influence the size and composition of bank credit in a negative interest rate environment. We exploit confidential information from the newly established European credit registry to capture bank lending conditions and bank risk taking. For identification, we use high-frequency reactions of bank bonds around the announcement of the April 2020 recalibration of the ECB’s Targeted Longer-Term Refinancing Operations (TLTROs). We find that the credit easing measures had a strong positive effect on bank credit, even when controlling for possible confounding factors. The increase in lending was not accompanied by excessive risk-taking, especially for banks with low intermediation margin, that is, those that were poised to benefit the most from TLTROs’ borrowing rates below the interest rates on central bank reserves.
- JEL Code
- E51 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Money Supply, Credit, Money Multipliers
E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
G01 : Financial Economics→General→Financial Crises
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
- 12 May 2022
- OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES - No. 293Details
- Abstract
- In July 2021 the Eurosystem decided to launch the investigation phase of the digital euro project, which aims to provide euro area citizens with access to central bank money in an increasingly digitalised world. While a digital euro could offer a wide range of benefits, it could prompt changes in the demand for bank deposits and services from private financial entities (ECB, 2020a), with knock-on consequences for bank lending and resilience. By inducing bank disintermediation, a central bank digital currency, or CBDC, could in principle alter the transmission of monetary policy and impact financial stability. To prevent this risk, options to moderate CBDC take-up are being discussed widely.In view of the significant degree of uncertainty surrounding the design of a potential digital euro, its demand and the prevailing environment in which it would be introduced, this paper explores a set of analytical exercises that can offer insights into the consequences it could have for bank intermediation in the euro area.Based on assumptions about the degree of substitution between different forms of money in normal times, several take-up scenarios are calculated to illustrate how the potential demand for a digital euro might shape up. The paper then analyses the mechanisms through which commercial banks and the central bank could react to the introduction of a digital euro. Overall, effects on bank intermediation are found to vary across credit institutions in normal times and to be potentially larger in stressed times. Further, a potential digital euro’s capacity to alter system-wide bank run dynamics appears to depend on a few crucial factors, such as CBDC remuneration and usage limits.
- JEL Code
- E42 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Monetary Systems, Standards, Regimes, Government and the Monetary System, Payment Systems
E51 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Money Supply, Credit, Money Multipliers
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
- 27 December 2019
- ECONOMIC BULLETIN - ARTICLEEconomic Bulletin Issue 8, 2019Details
- Abstract
- This article examines bank lending conditions for euro area non-financial corporations (NFCs), making use of the wealth of soft information available in the euro area bank lending survey (BLS) since its inception in 2003. One relevant question in this context is whether the tightening of the bank loan supply during the financial and sovereign debt crises has been offset by the easing of bank lending conditions for NFC loans since 2014. The article illustrates that the easing over this period has come mainly through a substantial loosening of the actual terms and conditions applied by banks to new loans to firms of average credit quality, while the credit standards that banks have established for their loan approval decisions have eased by less. The article also draws on the responses of individual banks to examine the differences in bank lending conditions for NFC loans across bank business models. This analysis reveals that the change in credit conditions of banks with business models more reliant on stable funding sources, such as deposits, is more muted. In short, it looks at additional aspects that enhance the regular assessment of bank lending conditions faced by firms based on the euro area BLS.
- JEL Code
- E4 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates
E44 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
E5 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit
E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
- 2022
- SUERF Policy Brief
- 2022
- VoxEU
- 2022
- SUERF Policy Brief