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We review the bank and CCP international regulatory reforms
implemented after the Great Financial Crisis (GFC). The reforms have
sought to bolster financial stability through both improved and new
standards.
Contribution
We ground the review on a unified analytical framework. The key
notion is "shock-absorbing capacity". The framework allows us to discuss
both individual "trees" (standards) and how they come together to shape
the regulatory "forest".
Findings
First, the post-GFC reforms have greatly strengthened the financial
system. They have improved the quantity, quality and timeliness of the
loss-absorbing resources supporting financial stability; they have
increased the robustness of standards to mismeasurement and misreporting
of risks; and they have addressed systemic ("macroprudential") concerns
head-on. Second, the system's shock-absorbing capacity depends strongly
on how individual standards interact, in some cases reinforcing each
other, in others giving rise to tensions. Third, there still are "barren
patches", or areas that deserve authorities' further attention. This
reinforces the need for a conservative regulatory approach.
Abstract
This paper reviews post-crisis financial regulatory reforms, examines
how they fit together and identifies open issues. Specifically, it
takes stock of the salient new features of bank and CCP international
standards within a unified analytical framework. The key notion in this
framework is "shock-absorbing capacity", which is higher when (i) there
is less exposure to the losses that a shock generates and (ii) there are
more resources to absorb such losses. How do the reforms strengthen
this capacity, individually and as a package? Which areas merit further
attention? We argue that, given the political economy pressures and
technical obstacles that the reforms have faced, as well as the inherent
uncertainty about the reforms' effects, it is important to maintain a
conservative regulatory approach. A higher cost of balance sheet space
is a healthy side effect of the backstops underpinning such an approach.
JEL classification: G21, G23, G28.
Keywords: bank regulation, CCPs, asset managers, macroprudential.
Regulatory policy responses should seek to support economic
activity while preserving the financial system's soundness and ensuring
transparency.
The recommendation for banks to make full use of capital and
liquidity buffers should go hand in hand with restrictions on dividends
and bonuses and clarity concerning the process for rebuilding them.
Flexibility in loan classification criteria for prudential and
accounting purposes should be complemented with sufficient disclosure on
the criteria banks use to assess creditworthiness.
The publication of detailed guidance on the application of expected
loss provisioning rules, combined with sensible transitional
arrangements, may constitute a balanced approach to mitigating the
unintended effects of the new accounting standards.
The essay focuses on the threefold challenge central banks have been
facing post-crisis - economic, intellectual and institutional. It pays
special attention to central bank independence.
Contribution
The essay examines these issues from a historical perspective. It
draws parallels with the first globalisation era that ended in the 1930s
with the Great Depression. Many observers regard that historical phase
as the heyday of central bank independence. What are the lessons for
today?
Findings
The essay argues that central bank independence is closely tied to
globalisation. Both spring from the same fountainhead - an intellectual
and political environment conducive to an open system in which countries
adhere to the same principles and governments remain at arm's length
from a market economy. A key way to safeguard independence is to narrow
the growing gap between what central banks are expected to deliver and
what they can actually deliver. Recently proposed schemes that involve
controlled deficit monetisation can be harmful and undermine
independence.
Abstract
Since the Great Financial Crisis, central banks have been facing a
triple challenge: economic, intellectual and institutional. The
institutional challenge is that central bank independence - a valuable
institution - has come in for greater criticism. This essay takes a
historical perspective and draws parallels with the previous waxing
and waning of central bank independence. It suggests that this
institution is closely tied to globalisation, as both spring from the
same fountainhead: an intellectual and political environment that
supports an open system in which countries adhere to the same principles
and governments remain at arm′s length from the functioning of a market
economy. This suggests that the fortunes of independence are also tied
to those of globalisation. The essay then proceeds to explore ways that
can help safeguard independence. A key one is to narrow the growing
expectations gap between what central banks are expected to deliver and
what they can actually deliver. In that context, it also considers and
dismisses the usefulness of recently proposed schemes that involve
controlled deficit monetisation.
JEL codes: E5
Keywords: central bank independence, globalisation, business cycles, fiscal dominance
Medidas anunciadas por su
Presidenta, Cristine Lagarde: mantener sin cambios los tipos de interés,
lanzar nuevas subastas de liquidez para los bancos y matizar el
horizonte temporal de su programa de compra de activos contra la
pandemia del Covid-19, que se limitaba a 2020 y ahora se vinculará a la
duración de la crisis.
Pueden ver también la nota que la Sra. Lagarde ha emitido conjuntamente con el Vicepresidente de la entidad, Luís de Guindos, en:
PRESS CONFERENCE
Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, Luis de Guindos, Vice-President of the ECB, Frankfurt am Main, 30 April 2020
Jump to the transcript of the questions and answers
Ladies
and gentlemen, the Vice-President and I are very pleased to welcome you
to our press conference. We will now report on the outcome of today’s
meeting of the Governing Council, which was also attended by the
Commission Executive Vice-President, Mr Dombrovskis.
The euro area
is facing an economic contraction of a magnitude and speed that are
unprecedented in peacetime. Measures to contain the spread of the
coronavirus (COVID-19) have largely halted economic activity in all the
countries of the euro area and across the globe. Survey indicators for
consumer and business sentiment have plunged, suggesting a sharp
contraction in economic growth and a profound deterioration in labour
market conditions. Given the high uncertainty surrounding the ultimate
extent of the economic fallout, growth scenarios produced by ECB staff
suggest that euro area GDP could fall by between 5% and 12% this year,
depending crucially on the duration of the containment measures and the
success of policies to mitigate the economic consequences for businesses
and workers. As the containment measures are gradually lifted, these
scenarios foresee a recovery in economic activity, although its speed
and scale remain highly uncertain. Inflation has declined as a result of
the sharp fall in oil prices and slightly lower HICP inflation
excluding energy and food.
The decisive and targeted policy
measures that we have taken since early March have provided crucial
support to the euro area economy and especially to the sectors most
exposed to the crisis. In particular, our measures are supporting
liquidity conditions and helping to sustain the flow of credit to
households and firms, especially small and medium-sized enterprises
(SMEs), and to maintain favourable financing conditions for all sectors
and jurisdictions.
We welcome the measures taken by euro area
governments and the European institutions to ensure sufficient
healthcare resources and to provide support to affected companies,
workers and households. At the same time, continued and ambitious
efforts are needed, notably through joint and coordinated policy action,
to guard against downside risks and to underpin the recovery.
In
line with our mandate, the Governing Council is determined to continue
to support households and firms in the face of the current economic
disruption and heightened uncertainty, in order to safeguard medium-term
price stability.
Accordingly, the Governing Council decided
today to further ease the conditions on our targeted longer-term
refinancing operations (TLTRO III). Specifically, we decided to reduce
the interest rate on TLTRO III operations during the period from June
2020 to June 2021 to 50 basis points below the average interest rate on
the Eurosystem’s main refinancing operations prevailing over the same
period. Moreover, for counterparties whose eligible net lending reaches
the lending performance threshold, the interest rate over the period
from June 2020 to June 2021 will now be 50 basis points below the
average deposit facility rate prevailing over the same period.
We
also decided on a new series of non-targeted pandemic emergency
longer-term refinancing operations (PELTROs) to support liquidity
conditions in the euro area financial system and contribute to
preserving the smooth functioning of money markets by providing an
effective liquidity backstop. The PELTROs consist of seven additional
refinancing operations commencing in May 2020 and maturing in a
staggered sequence between July and September 2021 in line with the
duration of our collateral easing measures. They will be carried out as
fixed rate tender procedures with full allotment, with an interest rate
that is 25 basis points below the average rate on the main refinancing
operations prevailing over the life of each PELTRO.
Further
details on the amendments made to the terms of TLTRO III and on our new
PELTROs will be published in dedicated press releases this afternoon at
15:30 CET.
Since the end of March we have been conducting
purchases under our new pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP),
which has an overall envelope of €750 billion, to ease the overall
monetary policy stance and to counter the severe risks to the monetary
policy transmission mechanism and the outlook for the euro area posed by
the coronavirus pandemic. These purchases will continue to be conducted
in a flexible manner over time, across asset classes and among
jurisdictions. We will conduct net asset purchases under the PEPP until
the Governing Council judges that the coronavirus crisis phase is over,
but in any case until the end of this year.
Moreover, net
purchases under our asset purchase programme (APP) will continue at a
monthly pace of €20 billion, together with the purchases under the
additional €120 billion temporary envelope until the end of the year. We
continue to expect monthly net asset purchases under the APP to run for
as long as necessary to reinforce the accommodative impact of our
policy rates, and to end shortly before we start raising the key ECB
interest rates.
We also intend to continue reinvesting, in full,
the principal payments from maturing securities purchased under the APP
for an extended period of time past the date when we start raising the
key ECB interest rates, and in any case for as long as necessary to
maintain favourable liquidity conditions and an ample degree of monetary
accommodation.
In addition, we decided to keep the key ECB interest rates
unchanged. We expect them to remain at their present or lower levels
until we have seen the inflation outlook robustly converge to a level
sufficiently close to, but below, 2% within our projection horizon, and
such convergence has been consistently reflected in underlying inflation
dynamics.
Together with the substantial monetary policy stimulus
already in place, these measures will support liquidity and funding
conditions and help to preserve the smooth provision of credit to the
real economy. At the same time, in the current rapidly evolving economic
environment, the Governing Council remains fully committed to doing
everything necessary within its mandate to support all citizens of the
euro area through this extremely challenging time. This applies first
and foremost to our role in ensuring that our monetary policy is
transmitted to all parts of the economy and to all jurisdictions in the
pursuit of our price stability mandate. We are, therefore, fully
prepared to increase the size of the PEPP and adjust its composition, by
as much as necessary and for as long as needed. In any case, the
Governing Council stands ready to adjust all of its instruments, as
appropriate, to ensure that inflation moves towards its aim in a
sustained manner, in line with its commitment to symmetry.
Let me now explain our assessment in greater detail, starting with the economic analysis.
The latest economic indicators and survey results covering the period
since the coronavirus spread to the euro area have shown an
unprecedented decline, pointing to a significant contraction in euro
area economic activity and to rapidly deteriorating labour markets. The
coronavirus pandemic and the associated containment measures have
severely affected the manufacturing and services sectors, taking a toll
on the productive capacity of the euro area economy and on domestic
demand. In the first quarter of 2020, which was only partially affected
by the spread of the coronavirus, euro area real GDP decreased by 3.8%,
quarter on quarter, reflecting the impact of the lockdown measures in
the final weeks of the quarter. The sharp downturn in economic activity
in April suggests that the impact is likely to be even more severe in
the second quarter. Looking beyond the immediate disruption stemming
from the coronavirus pandemic, euro area growth is expected to resume as
the containment measures are gradually lifted, supported by favourable
financing conditions, the euro area fiscal stance and a resumption in
global activity.
Given the highly uncertain duration of the
pandemic, the likely extent and duration of the imminent recession and
the subsequent recovery are difficult to predict. However, without
pre-empting the forthcoming Eurosystem staff macroeconomic projections,
which will be published in June, growth scenarios produced by ECB staff
suggest that euro area GDP could fall by between 5% and 12% this year,
followed by a recovery and normalisation of growth in subsequent years.
The extent of the contraction and the recovery will depend crucially on
the duration and the success of the containment measures, how far supply
capacity and domestic demand are permanently affected, and the success
of policies in mitigating the adverse impact on incomes and employment.
According
to Eurostat’s flash estimate, euro area annual HICP inflation decreased
from 0.7% in March to 0.4% in April, largely driven by lower energy
price inflation, but also slightly lower HICP inflation excluding energy
and food. On the basis of the sharp decline in current and futures
prices for oil, headline inflation is likely to decline considerably
further over the coming months. The sharp downturn in economic activity
is expected to lead to negative effects on underlying inflation over the
coming months. However, the medium-term implications of the coronavirus
pandemic for inflation are surrounded by high uncertainty, given that
downward pressures linked to weaker demand may be partially offset by
upward pressures related to supply disruptions. Market-based indicators
of longer-term inflation expectations have remained at depressed levels.
Even though survey-based indicators of inflation expectations have
declined over the short and medium term, longer-term expectations have
been less affected.
Turning to the monetary analysis,
broad money (M3) growth increased to 7.5% in March 2020, from 5.5% in
February. Money growth reflects bank credit creation for the private
sector, which is driven to a large extent by drawing on credit lines,
and low opportunity costs of holding M3 relative to other financial
instruments, while heightened economic uncertainty appears to have
triggered a shift towards monetary holdings, likely for precautionary
reasons. In this environment, the narrow monetary aggregate M1,
encompassing the most liquid forms of money, continues to be the main
contributor to broad money growth.
Developments in loans to the
private sector have also been shaped by the impact of the coronavirus.
The annual growth rate of loans to households stood at 3.4% in March
2020, after 3.7% in February, while the annual growth rate of loans to
non-financial corporations stood at 5.4% in March, after 3.0% in
February.These developments are also clearly visible
in the results of the euro area bank lending survey for the first
quarter of 2020, which indicate a surge in firms’ demand for loans and
for drawing on credit lines to meet liquidity needs for working capital,
while financing needs for fixed investment declined. Demand for loans
to households for house purchase increased less than in the previous
quarter. Credit standards for loans to firms tightened slightly, while
credit standards for loans to households tightened more strongly. In
both cases, this was related to the deterioration in the economic
outlook and a decline in the creditworthiness of firms and households.
At the same time, banks expect an easing of credit standards for loans
to firms in the second quarter of 2020.
Our policy measures, in
particular the more favourable terms for TLTRO III operations and the
collateral easing measures, should encourage banks to extend loans to
all private sector entities. Together with the credit support measures
adopted by national governments and European institutions, they support
ongoing access to financing, including for those most affected by the
ramifications of the coronavirus pandemic.
To sum up, a cross-check
of the outcome of the economic analysis with the signals coming from
the monetary analysis confirmed that an ample degree of monetary
accommodation is necessary for the robust convergence of inflation to
levels that are below, but close to, 2% over the medium term.
Regarding fiscal policies,
an ambitious and coordinated fiscal stance is critical, in view of the
sharp contraction in the euro area economy. Measures taken should as
much as possible be targeted and temporary in nature in response to the
pandemic emergency. We welcome the endorsement by the European Council
of the Eurogroup agreement on the three safety nets for workers,
businesses and sovereigns, amounting to a package worth €540 billion. At
the same time, the Governing Council urges further strong and timely
efforts to prepare and support the recovery. In this regard, we welcome
the European Council agreement to work towards establishing a recovery
fund dedicated to dealing with this unprecedented crisis.
We are now ready to take your questions.
* * *
We
will very shortly take your questions but before that, on behalf of the
entire Eurosystem and all members of the ECB, I would like to
acknowledge once more that this is a global health crisis and that the
highest priority has to go to trying to save lives and prevent the
spread of the disease. Since our last press conference, on March 12th,
it’s about three additional million people who have been infected by
coronavirus and a third of them in the euro area. And while it is
heartening to see the curve of death flattening, we must remember that
each death is a tragedy for those who stay and we would like to express
our sympathy and our condolences to all those who are suffering those
deaths. And we would like to also express our gratitude, deep gratitude,
to all those, from doctors to nurses, to ambulance drivers and all
those who actually are on the front line of this fight against the virus
and who risk their life.
As I told you those are very
strange and uncertain times and it is in a way demonstrated by the
absence of Vice-President de Guindos next to me. Vice-President de
Guindos is with us online, we have been operating in split teams and
therefore we do not see each other, we do not contact each other, and he
is with us on the phone. If there are questions directed to him he will
be able to take them whenever it’s convenient, but he is with us.
With
that, we are going to operate also in a strange way. The room is not
like any room that we have had in press conferences before. It’s empty.
So you are all online and I know that you are submitting questions or
you will be submitting questions in relation to the Governing Council
that has just concluded.
-
Good afternoon, thanks for
taking my questions. The first one is about the asset purchases. I
wanted to know if you discussed changing the composition or the pace of
the asset purchases. Most particularly I'm interested in whether you
discussed including junk-rated debt in the APP.
-
The
second question is about OMT and whether you see OMT as an appropriate
tool in the current crisis for some of the countries. Do you think a
blanket ESM programme for all of the eurozone, as floated by some, would
be a viable solution?
Lagarde: Thank you very much for
your two-pointed questions. I am going to take the opportunity of this
first question to take you back a little bit to the last two days that
we've had with Governing Council members. I also want to take this
opportunity to walk you through the masses of changes that the
Eurosystem and the ECB together have decided and, for most of them
actually now, implemented in the last few weeks. In terms of the current
situation, we are facing an economic contraction of a magnitude and
speed that is unprecedented in recent history. The spread of the
coronavirus and the associated containment measures have literally
halted economic activity to a large extent across the globe. We are
seeing a rapid evolution of the economic effects of the necessary
containment measures in our area. Initially there were only some sectors
that were badly affected. We were talking about transportation, we were
talking about tourism, we were talking about entertainment. Gradually
as the containment measures took hold, entire sectors of the economy to a
large extent were simply shut down.
It's reflected and it will
continue to be reflected, the hard numbers are just beginning to come.
We just had a few numbers from the first quarter and frankly, our
forecast for the second quarter in our severe scenario points to minus
15% on a quarterly basis. Consumer business sentiment indicators are in
freefall, while labour market conditions have deteriorated massively. If
you look at the PMI composite, for instance, in April 13.5 and it comes
from 29.7 in March and before that, 51.6 in February. That decline,
which is also quite remarkable and explains quite a lot of things, was
driven by the manufacturing sector but very much so by the service
sector as well. The European Commission Flash Consumer Confidence also
dropped to minus 27.7. If you look at labour forces, 718,000 companies
in Germany have applied for the short-term special work programme.
In
France the number of companies that have applied for the chômage
partiel – the unemployment special schemes – went from 24,000 to
425,000, covering over 10 million employees. In Italy it's 4.6 million
employees that are covered. We do not still have clarity about the
course of the pandemic and the duration and the degree of remaining
containment measures that will be taken, which of course is critical for
us to actually take an assessment of what the economic situation will
be. It makes our job of forecasting, and all those who are trying to
forecast around the world, extremely difficult. As I said, our growth
scenarios on an annual basis, from the mild to the more severe, vary
from 5 to 12% negative depending on the containment measures that are
taken. Of course as and when the containment measures are lifted, we
expect a recovery of economic activity, but we cannot tell at what speed
and what will be the scale of it.
Now, let me turn to the number
of measures that we have taken since March. All those measures are aimed
at 1) ensuring ample liquidity conditions 2) protecting the smooth flow
of credit to business and households and 3) preserving
highly-accommodative financing conditions. Those are the three goals
we're pursuing. There is the pandemic emergency purchase programme, €750
billion, combined with our increased APP decided on the 12th
March – €120 billion combined with our monthly purchases of €20 billion
monthly. We have over €1 trillion that we can deploy and use until the
end of the year to purchase assets. Our new targeted lending facility
provides for around €3 trillion in liquidity to banks at a negative
rate. This rate can be significantly below our policy rate. Third, we
have also significantly eased our collateral rules to ensure that banks
can continue to make use of the refinancing facilities, ensuring that
our monetary policy tools remain effective even in times of severe
financial market stress, and against the backdrop of looming rating
downgrades.
These measures altogether form a really powerful
package and are providing crucial support to the euro area economy,
notably to those sectors most exposed to the crisis. I will tell you, as
the economic situation is evolving rapidly, we are constantly
monitoring the situation and evaluating each of those measures as
standalones and as part of the package to test whether they are still
properly calibrated and sized appropriately. In light of this, and with
the view to further ease the conditions for banks to provide credit to
the real economy, we decided to take further action today. We eased the
conditions of our TLTRO III. What did we do? We reduced the interest
rates for the period from June '20 to June '21 by a further 25 basis
points. The rate in TLTRO III can now be as low as minus one percent. We
also decided to create a new instrument that we call PELTRO; the
Pandemic Emergency Longer-Term Refinancing Operation, which is intended
to support liquidity conditions to the entire euro area, to the entire
financial system, to contribute to preserving the smooth functioning of
money markets by providing effectively a liquidity backstop.
These
operations will be carried out as fixed-rate tender procedures, with
full allotment, at an interest rate that will be 25 basis points below
the average main refinancing operation rate or MRO rate. The Governing
Council – and we discussed that over the last two days – is more
determined than ever to strengthen its commitment, to ensure supportive
financial conditions across all sectors and countries so that they can
absorb this unprecedented shock that we are experiencing. With this in
mind, we will make full use of the flexibility that is embedded in PEPP
and in other components of our policy toolkit to ensure that our
monetary policy stance reaches all sectors and countries in the same
manner.
I'm saying all that to you to address your questions
because as one of the decisions that we made and that I just commented,
we decided to enlarge the pool of collateral by effectively freezing
ratings where they were on April 7th. We provided for a floor
which is at CQS5, but that gives a large pool from which banks can
actually draw in order to get financing. We did not discuss the APP. Let
me remind you that again we are fully flexible, we will look at all
options, we will determine and monitor and we will make sure that our
monetary stance and our monetary policy transmission are both effective.
Your second question dealt with OMT. Now, let me remind you that
OMT was conceived back in 2012 and there was full publication about the
terms and conditions and characteristics of OMT. OMT was intended for
particular country cases and particular circumstances where, because of
fiscal policy or structural policy misguidance, there was a potential
risk out there that the euro area be at risk and that it would be
self-fulfilling. Those were the days. We are no longer facing that
situation. We are facing a situation where it's not a single country,
but it's all countries, where it's a global shock that applies in a very
symmetric way. The best tool that we have in our toolbox is indeed the
Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme, PEPP.
Now, of course OMT
remains part of the toolbox and we are not suggesting that we would
eliminate OMT, but for the crisis we're going through at the moment,
PEPP is clearly designed to that effect, added to which the triggering
of OMT of course is a matter for the Governing Council to decide. I
think I've dealt with your two questions.
-
Just to be
clear, because you just said that the Governing Council did not discuss
APP; I was wondering, was there any discussion about increasing or
adjusting the size and composition of PEPP? That's something that you
mentioned, that you said you stand ready to adjust, and it's something a
lot of economists are expecting at the moment.
My
second question is: what was your rationale for not cutting interest
rates today given that the rate on your new Pandemic Emergency
Longer-Term Refinancing Operation seems to effectively act as a rate cut
in the MRO rate by 25 basis points?
Lagarde: On your
first question relating to the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme:
let me just remind you that it's a programme that is a standalone, very
exceptional programme that is intended to address the issue of the
pandemic. So it is unlike any other programme, which is why it was
targeted, it was temporary and it was flexible. I'll remind you that the
life of that PEPP is going to be determined by the Governing Council.
It will not end earlier than the end of calendar year but depending on
the length of the crisis – and this will be the determination of the
Governing Council – it might be extended further than the end of 2020.
It is also not the only programme that we have. We have purchase
programmes, including the €120 billion that were decided on March 12th.
We have our recurring monthly €20 billion programme that is also in
place. Let's not just focus on PEPP, which is very specifically
designed, but let's make sure that we understand the whole firepower
that the ECB has available, which is north of €1 trillion.
Now, on
PEPP I just want to take you to exactly the wording that we have, which
relates to the flexibility. From memory, what was decided and it was
the fruit of significant discussions all in the light of the exceptional
circumstances that we were going through, we have very specifically the
fact that to the extent – and I quote – “That some self-imposed limits
might hamper action that the ECB is required to take in order to fulfil
its mandate, the Governing Council will consider revising them to the
extent necessary to make its action proportionate to the risks that we
face.” That's a very clear indication that if it is so necessary because
our action is impaired by those self-imposed limits, we will revisit
them. You know that the legal act was published shortly after that,
which distinguishes very clearly the APP holdings from the PEPP
holdings.
We believe that we have to make full use, and continue
to make full use, of that flexibility. That applies across classes of
assets. It applies across jurisdictions. It applies across time. So we
will use that flexibility full fledge. Indeed, we stand ready to
revisit, to examine and as is mentioned very clearly in the introductory
statement, to calibrate and to adjust the size and the composition of
PEPP in size, in length, in order to make sure that our monetary stance
and our monetary policy is properly transmitted. On the interest rate:
you know, we look at the bulk of what we've done since early March and
we believe that between the massive liquidity facility, between the
revised and much improved TLTROs, with the enlarged pool of collateral
from which banks can draw, combined with an interest rate that itself
was already at low level, we have the combination as a package to
actually address the current circumstances. It does show in the results.
I
think the Bank Lending Survey that was published a couple of days ago
is absolutely explicit in that respect. The way by which yields on many
of the government bonds have evolved over the last few weeks is also
indicative of the action that we take. We have used flexibility when it
was necessary. We will continue to do so, believe me.
Two
very quick questions. One is: a lot of economists are saying the ECB
should just adopt formal yield control policies. What do you think about
that?
Do you now believe that it is the ECB's role to control the spreads on government debt?
Lagarde:
All right, the yield curve control policy: as I just said, I think the
combination of tools that we are using at the moment enables us to
operate across the entire curve and to actually deal with all
maturities. Whether it's the short end, the long end of the curve, we
are in a capacity to deal with the two key objectives that we have,
which are; to make sure the monetary stance reaches its goal, and that
monetary policy is properly transmitted. All of that within our mandate
and all of that with the ultimate objective of price stability. Now,
clearly we are operating under very specific circumstances and the
combination of those tools enables us to satisfy those objectives.
As
I said earlier, we will use any and all flexibility that we have in
accordance with our mandate in order to make sure that our monetary
policy is properly transmitted to all jurisdictions, from east to west,
from north to south, to all sectors of the economy. We have the
flexibility to do so, so we will use it full fledge.
I
have two questions: one is again on the OMT because the details of the
new pandemic ECCL – the special ESM Precautionary Credit Line – will be
defined shortly. The market expects that this new ECCL will give the
possibility also to go and trigger, or ask for, the OMT. Are there
special details that this new ECCL Credit Line should have to trigger
OMT?
Then the second question is more on Italy,
because reportedly the ECB has been buying, very heavily, Italian
government bonds through PSPP and PEPP, yet the capital key is still
there and there is no reinvestment of principal payments. In Italy there
is a feeling that the ECB could do more because you said that the
coronavirus has symmetric impact, but then it has asymmetric damages. Is
the ECB doing enough for Italy?
Lagarde: On OMT, I think
I've already responded, but I'll be happy to expand on that. OMT was
created in 2012 – different times, different issues – and it was
designed for countries but taken in isolation, that were facing
particular serious circumstances. Clearly, countries had to be subject
to an ESM programme, which had conditionalities. Those September 12th
conditions also provided that the Governing Council would consider OMT
warranted from a monetary policy perspective. There was never an
automatic trigger for OMT. The Governing Council needs to assess that
there is a clear monetary policy justification and objective. As I said
earlier, OMT is not necessarily best suited for the present
contingencies. OMT is in the toolbox, it is there but given the symmetry
of the shock, clearly the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme is
designed specifically to that end; to make sure that the monetary stance
reaches its goals, monetary policy is transmitted throughout the euro
area. PEPP provides that; it is exceptional, it is temporary, it is
targeted and it's intended to be used with great flexibility. You just
noted that, actually.
We do use flexibility in how we use PEPP and
on that particular page, I am pleased to report to you that the
Governing Council has decided the publication principles that will apply
to our PEPP programmes. That had not been clarified yet and you'll be
pleased to know also that we will apply the same granularity principles
that apply to APP, but we will publish on a bi-monthly basis. So it will
be accumulated over two months, but it will be as granular as the APP.
That will give really good and solid information. But given the
specificity of PEPP, we considered that it was most appropriate to do so
on a bi-monthly basis.
As I told you, our aims are twofold and we
will not tolerate any risk of fragmentation. We will want to make sure
that there is plenty of liquidity, we will want to make sure that credit
flows to the economy, that our monetary policy stance and transmission
are effective. We will do so in whichever country needs to benefit from
our determinations. We are determined to use all those tools and we are
determined to deploy full flexibility, as I've just indicated.
I
have a very detailed question on whether you'd also think about buying
junk bonds, not only accepting them as collateral, so whether you also
grandfather, for example, bonds in that respect.
Another
question is just a clarification of what you said earlier with regards
to PELTROs. Would you also accept other counterparties i.e. non-banks,
or it's just purely banks you are thinking about?
Lagarde:
To your question, is the ECB going to buy junk bonds; we have not
discussed any change to the APP eligibility framework at this point in
time. For the PEPP I would like to remind you that we have already given
a waiver of eligibility requirements for securities issued by the Greek
government. It exists. This was also part of the multiple decisions
that we made in March. As I said already, we have been very, very clear –
and if I need to repeat it again, I will repeat it again – we will not
accept fragmentation of monetary transmission in the euro area or any
pro-cyclical tightening of financing conditions. So within our mandate
and with these two principles in mind, we will adjust as and when
needed.
I think you had a second question and that had to do with
the PELTROs. Now, I don't know exactly what you wanted to know about
PELTROs. Do you mind repeating your question on PELTRO?
I
can: whether you would also accept other counterparties for this
specific operation other than banks. Would you extend it also to
non-banks?
Lagarde: PELTRO is an additional tool in many ways because we had initially thought that the LTRO decided on March 12th
was only a bridge until the next entry into effect of TLTRO. We decided
to actually put in place PELTROs to provide additional support to
liquidity conditions in financial markets, contributing to preserve the
smooth functioning of money markets by providing an effective liquidity
backstop. Extending it beyond the normal counterparties that we have,
the Governing Council has not discussed that, but once again we are in
such uncertain times. There is such a threat to the economic fabrics of
our societies that we have to be open-minded and look at all
possibilities. I am not closing off anything in that respect, but we
have not discussed it in the Governing Council.
Two
questions. The first is: when you're thinking about how to, or whether
to, increase the size of the PEPP programme, are you orienting yourself
to the scale of new government bond issuance this year? It seems like
analysts are thinking about it in those terms; that there might be about
three-quarters of a trillion of new government bond issuance in the
eurozone. Is that the factor you're looking at closely when you think
about whether to increase the scale of the PEPP?
My
second question is that your measures today were really focused on the
banking sector. Is that for a particular reason? Are you seeing any
particular stresses in the eurozone banking sector at the moment?
Lagarde:
You know, our PEPP is as I said one huge component of our purchase
programme capacity. Don't forget that you also have these other
components that bring it all together to over €1 trillion. That's one.
Second, as I said, we will use full flexibility to deploy this
particular powder in the right direction where we feel that there is a
risk of tightening and where we feel that we need to intervene to
protect and preserve our monetary policy stance and our monetary policy
transmission. As I said, flexibility means across classes of assets,
across jurisdictions, across time. In terms of timing I also remind you
that the length, the duration of that PEPP will be determined by the
Governing Council, taking into account the pandemic crisis time.
We
take into account all indicators that we can and our purposes are very
simple; monetary stance, monetary policy transmission, appropriate level
of liquidity, making sure that credit flows. That takes me to the
second part of your question. TLTROs and this particular one in its
latest iteration that can go all the way down to minus one percent at
which banks can finance themselves, is intended for the real economy, is
intended for credit to flow to the real economy from the large
corporate to the sole entrepreneur, and everything in between. It is
associated with a threshold that banks have to demonstrate they are
reaching. In other words, if they make sure that they don't leverage, if
they continue to have a full exposure and that they continue to give
credit to the economy, then they become eligible to this particularly
favourable rate. It is not without consideration that we have reframed
this TLTRO. It's not intended for banks; it's intended for the financing
of the economy.
We regard that as an absolute imperative if we
want the economies of the euro area to actually be in a position to
resist the extraordinary shock that it is suffering, and to be in a
position to pick up strength and to continue to exist and invest and
create those jobs that are being – that are vanishing at the moment.
That's what we are doing.
Because of the COVID banking
crisis, NPLs are expected to rise. How worried are you about them being a
risk to financial stability?
My second question
is that some ECB board members are worried that these crisis measures
will take on a more permanent character. We see that some eurozone
countries are working on an exit strategy from the lockdown measures. Is
the ECB also thinking about its exit strategy?
Lagarde:
I'll start with the last one because that's one that is also taking a
lot of our time and a lot of our concern. We are operating under pretty
much lockdown status at the moment. I take the opportunity of this press
conference to actually thank all staff of the Eurosystem and those here
at the ECB who are making huge sacrifices every day to actually
deliver, be able to be on the markets as actively as they normally are,
and all that despite teleworking, despite children at home and all the
rest of it. We might be bankers. We are also taking the hit in the same
way and having to face the same hardship on a day-to-day basis. We try
to guard against the difficulties that could arise from that. We are
looking at how, as the German regulations, prescriptions and
recommendations evolve over the course of the next few weeks, how we can
also ourselves make sure that we exit without jeopardising our
operations, without making the system at risk. I would like to actually
tell you that those people who work in teams between various countries
are also experiencing some tough times.
Yes, we are looking at the
exit options. What I can tell you is that because of the social
distancing, because of the way we have to work, this return to normal,
so to speak – which will be a new normal – is certainly not in the next
few months. We are looking at way down and probably out in 2021 in terms
of return to a new normal. For the moment it's going to be gradual and
with two imperatives. The first one is to make sure that staff are safe,
stay healthy, are protected and 2) that we honour our mandate and we do
our duty to the citizens of the euro area.
Permanent character of
the crisis: we certainly hope that this is not the case. As our
macroeconomic team has forecast, while the next quarters will be
difficult, we are also looking at a pick-up and at our recovery. The
forecast that you will see in June, I hope, and the scenario results
that you will see tomorrow – because we publish tomorrow the scenario –
indicate actually a recovery and an uptick in the situation in 2021. We
very much hope that it will not be permanent. I hope that the European
agencies and institutions under the leadership of the European Council
and the Eurogroup, will do everything they can in order to have a joint
approach and in order to show solidarity to those that have been most
affected by the current crisis.
Financial stability: I would
simply like to say that since the last great financial crisis in 2008,
the banks are in a much stronger position. Clearly, many of them have
made a very significant effort to reduce their non-performing loans and
have done so. Clearly, at the moment, the point is to focus on defeating
the economic consequences of the pandemic, but obviously financial
stability will remain of concern. The SSM, under the leadership of
Andrea Enria, obviously is looking at that from a microprudential point
of view.
I just want to ask about inflation in light of
the decline in inflation for April. I'm wondering if you're expecting
inflation to go negative in May and, longer term, whether you see a
danger of deflation in the eurozone.
Lagarde: First of
all, I highly recommend that you look at the scenario publication
tomorrow, because they go into great details on those numbers. You know,
I'm going to refrain from making any kind of guesstimate of what we
see. What we are certain to see is significantly reduced inflation. How
much is going to be very difficult to determine, and why is that?
Because of the lockdown, essentially; because the price formation
mechanisms are not in place. Added to that, simply the collection of
data about prices is sometimes very significantly impaired. I would
refrain from that. I think clearly, in the short and medium term, we are
seeing inflation expectations and forecasts that are significantly
lower than what we had seen. The longer-term expectations have not been
significantly affected, but we are in a completely exceptional situation
which, by many accounts, prevents forecasters and estimates from having
any of accuracy.
-
El BCE refuerza los estímulos para Europa y prevé una caída entre el 5% y el 12% este año
El Banco Central Europeo (BCE) vuelve a dejar claro que
aún le queda artillería para hacer frente a la crisis que está
golpeando a Europa como consecuencia del coronavirus. Otra cosa es cómo y
cuándo va a usarla. La entidad ha celebrado este jueves su reunión
mensual y al término ha anunciado varias novedades en su plan de
actuación para seguir inyectando liquidez al sistema bancario regional y
haciendo llegar el dinero a las empresas y familias.
Los estatutos del BCE, así como el Tratado de Lisboa le prohíben, igual
que a los bancos centrales de la Unión Europea, prestar directamente a
los Estados. Por lo tanto, presta a los bancos privados que a su vez
prestan a los Estados a un tipo de interés más alto. El artículo 101 del
Tratado de Maastricht retomado íntegramente por el Tratado de Lisboa
en su artículo 123, agrega: «Queda prohibida la autorización
de descubiertos o la concesión de cualquier otro tipo de créditos por
el Banco Central Europeo y por los bancos centrales de los Estados
miembros, denominados en lo sucesivo «bancos centrales nacionales», en
favor de instituciones, órganos u organismos de la Unión, Gobiernos
centrales, autoridades regionales o locales u otras autoridades
públicas, organismos de Derecho público o empresas públicas de los
Estados miembros, así como la adquisición directa a los mismos de
instrumentos de deuda por el Banco Central Europeo o los bancos
centrales nacionales
Se debe tener
presente que el BCE no compra directamente a los Estados los títulos de
deuda pública que emiten para su financiación. Los gobiernos que
crearon el BCE querían reservar al sector privado el monopolio del
crédito destinado a los poderes públicos.
Desde 2010, el BCE compra títulos de la deuda pública en el mercado
secundario: no los compra directamente a los Estados sino a los bancos
que, a su vez, los compraron en el mercado primario, y que no saben cómo
desembarazarse de ellos. Éste es el segundo medio utilizado por el BCE
para financiar a los bancos. Si el BCE comprase títulos públicos en el
mercado primario, se aportaría una financiación directa a los Estado
De conformidad con
el artículo 19, apartado 1, de los Estatutos, el BCE puede exigir que
las entidades de crédito establecidas en los Estados miembros mantengan
unas reservas mínimas en el BCE y en los bancos centrales nacionales. La
función del sistema de reservas mínimas
es la estabilización de los tipos de interés a corto plazo en el
mercado y la creación (o ampliación) de un déficit estructural de
liquidez en el sistema bancario frente al Eurosistema, lo que facilita
el control de los tipos del mercado monetario mediante operaciones
periódicas que proporcionen liquidez. Los métodos de cálculo y
determinación de la cantidad requerida son fijados por el Consejo de
Gobierno.
La independencia
del BCE se preserva, asimismo, mediante las prohibiciones enunciadas en
el artículo 123 del TFUE, que también son aplicables a los bancos
centrales nacionales: queda prohibida la autorización de descubiertos o
la concesión de cualquier otro tipo de
créditos en favor de instituciones, órganos u organismos de la Unión,
Gobiernos centrales, autoridades regionales o locales u otras
autoridades públicas, organismos de Derecho público o empresas públicas
de los Estados miembros
Aqui hay los fundamentos , un
banco central, es quien controla al resto de bancos de su area, pudiendo
sancionar y pudiendo salvar en el caso de riesgo sistemico,,,el tema
dela relacion entre lo que tienen depositado y lo que pueden mutiplicar
para poder prestar o invertir debe mantener una relaciones
El
Sistema Europeo de Bancos Centrales (SEBC) comprende el Banco Central
Europeo (BCE) y los bancos centrales nacionales de todos los Estados
miembros de la Unión. El objetivo principal del SEBC es mantener la
estabilidad de los precios. A fin de alcanzar este objetivo principal,
el Consejo de Gobierno del BCE basa sus decisiones en una estrategia de
política monetaria de dos pilares y las ejecuta empleando medidas de
política monetaria convencionales y no convencionales. Los instrumentos
principales de la política monetaria ordinaria del BCE son las
operaciones de mercado abierto, las facilidades permanentes y el
mantenimiento de reservas mínimas. Como respuesta a la crisis
financiera, el BCE también ha cambiado su estrategia de comunicación al
ofrecer orientación anticipada sobre la trayectoria futura de su
política de tipos de interés, sujeta a las perspectivas de estabilidad
de los precios, y ha adoptado una serie de medidas no convencionales de
política monetaria. Entre ellas figura la adquisición de activos y
títulos de deuda soberana en los mercados secundarios, con el fin de
salvaguardar la estabilidad de los precios y la eficacia del mecanismo
de transmisión de la política monetaria.
Base jurídica
Artículos 119 a 144, 219 y 282 a 284 del Tratado de Funcionamiento de la Unión Europea (TFUE);
Protocolo (n.º 4) del Tratado de Lisboa sobre los Estatutos del Sistema Europeo de Bancos Centrales y del Banco Central Europeo.
Objetivos
En virtud del artículo 127, apartado 1, del TFUE, el objetivo
principal del SEBC es mantener la estabilidad de los precios. Sin
perjuicio de este objetivo, el SEBC apoya las políticas económicas
generales de la Unión con el fin de contribuir a la realización de los
objetivos de la Unión. El SEBC actúa con arreglo al principio de una
economía de mercado abierta y de libre competencia, fomentando una
eficiente asignación de recursos (artículo 127, apartado 1, del TFUE).
Resultados
A.
Principios rectores de la actividad del BCE 1.
Independencia del BCE
El principio esencial de la independencia del BCE se encuentra
establecido en el artículo 130 del TFUE: «En el ejercicio de las
facultades y en el desempeño de las funciones y obligaciones que les
asignan los Tratados y los Estatutos del SEBC y del BCE, ni el Banco
Central Europeo, ni los bancos centrales nacionales, ni ninguno de los
miembros de sus órganos rectores podrán solicitar o aceptar
instrucciones de las instituciones, órganos u organismos de la Unión, ni
de los Gobiernos de los Estados miembros, ni de ningún otro órgano». La
independencia del BCE se preserva, asimismo, mediante las prohibiciones
enunciadas en el artículo 123 del TFUE, que también son aplicables a
los bancos centrales nacionales: queda prohibida la autorización de
descubiertos o la concesión de cualquier otro tipo de créditos en favor
de instituciones, órganos u organismos de la Unión, Gobiernos centrales,
autoridades regionales o locales u otras autoridades públicas,
organismos de Derecho público o empresas públicas de los Estados
miembros. La independencia del BCE se centra en la libre elección de los
instrumentos de política monetaria. El Tratado prevé la utilización de
instrumentos tradicionales (artículos 18 y 19 de los Estatutos) y
permite al Consejo de Gobierno decidir sobre el uso de otros métodos que
considere adecuados (artículo 20 de los Estatutos). 2.
Principios de responsabilidad y transparencia del BCE
Con el fin de garantizar la credibilidad del BCE, el artículo 284
del TFUE y el artículo 15 de los Estatutos le imponen unas obligaciones
de información. El BCE elabora y publica informes sobre las actividades
del SEBC con una periodicidad al menos trimestral, y se publica
semanalmente un estado financiero consolidado del SEBC. Desde el
principio, el boletín mensual del BCE ha ofrecido un análisis exhaustivo
de la situación económica y de las perspectivas de evolución de los
precios. Dicho boletín mensual fue sustituido en enero de 2015 por un
nuevo boletín económico que, habida cuenta del cambio en enero de 2015 a
un intervalo de seis semanas entre las reuniones de política monetaria
del Consejo de Gobierno, se publicará dos semanas después de cada
reunión de política monetaria. El 19 de febrero de 2015, el BCE publicó
por primera vez un informe relativo a una reunión de política monetaria
del Consejo de Gobierno y, al hacerlo, se adhirió a la política de
comunicación de otros bancos centrales importantes. Asimismo, el BCE
presenta al Parlamento Europeo un informe anual sobre las actividades
del SEBC y sobre la política monetaria del año anterior y del año en
curso. El BCE debe rendir cuentas al Parlamento Europeo y los miembros
del Comité Ejecutivo del BCE comparecen periódicamente ante el
Parlamento. 3.
Normas de votación en el Consejo de Gobierno del BCE (artículo 10, apartado 2, de los Estatutos)
En las votaciones del Consejo de Gobierno se respetaba el principio
de «un miembro, un voto». No obstante, con arreglo a los Tratados de la
Unión, se debía introducir un sistema de rotación en el mecanismo de
votación del Consejo de Gobierno del BCE en cuanto la zona del euro
contara con más de dieciocho Estados, como es el caso desde el 1 de
enero de 2015 con la incorporación de Lituania. El propósito de la
rotación es garantizar la eficacia del sistema de toma de decisiones del
BCE incluso con un mayor número de participantes. Los gobernadores de
los países de la zona del euro que ocupan las primeras cinco posiciones
según el tamaño de sus economías y de sus sectores financieros (en estos
momentos, Alemania, Francia, Italia, España y los Países Bajos)
disponen de cuatro votos. Los demás (actualmente, catorce) disponen de
once. Para ejercer sus derechos de voto, los gobernadores se turnan
siguiendo una rotación mensual. Los miembros del Comité Ejecutivo del
BCE tienen derechos permanentes de voto. B.
Estrategia de política monetaria del BCE 1.
Panorama general
El 13 de octubre de 1998, el Consejo de Gobierno del BCE estableció
los elementos principales de su estrategia de política monetaria, a
saber, a) una definición cuantitativa de estabilidad de precios, b) un
papel destacado del seguimiento del crecimiento de la masa monetaria,
identificado por un agregado monetario, y c) una valoración amplia de
las perspectivas de evolución de los precios. El BCE ha optado por una
estrategia monetaria basada en dos pilares (pilar 1: análisis económico;
y pilar 2: análisis monetario), cuyas respectivas funciones se
volvieron a definir con motivo de la revisión de esta estrategia, el
8 de mayo de 2003. En una audiencia pública organizada por la Comisión de Asuntos Económicos y Monetarios
el 4 de septiembre de 2019, la nueva Presidenta del BCE, Sra. Lagarde,
anunció que se revisará la estrategia de política monetaria del BCE. 2.
Estabilidad de los precios
La estabilidad de los precios se define como una tasa de inflación
(incremento interanual del índice de precios de consumo armonizado
—IPCA— de la zona del euro) inferior al 2 %, pero cercana a este valor, a
medio plazo. 3.
Primer pilar de la estrategia de política monetaria: análisis económico
El análisis económico evalúa los factores determinantes a corto y
medio plazo de la evolución de los precios. La atención se centra en la
actividad real y las condiciones financieras de la economía. En dicho
análisis se tiene en cuenta que la evolución de los precios en estos
horizontes temporales se ve influida, en gran medida, por la interacción
entre la oferta y la demanda en los mercados de bienes, de servicios y
de factores; para ello, el BCE analiza periódicamente, entre otras
variables, la evolución del producto total, de la demanda y de la
situación del mercado de trabajo, una amplia gama de indicadores de
precios y costes, la política fiscal, la balanza de pagos de la zona del
euro y los precios de los activos[1]. 4.
Segundo pilar de la estrategia de política monetaria: análisis monetario
El análisis monetario aprovecha el vínculo a largo plazo existente
entre el dinero y los precios y sirve principalmente como medio para
contrastar la información de corto a medio plazo que proporciona el
análisis económico. Se trata de un análisis detallado de la evolución
monetaria y del crédito al objeto de evaluar sus repercusiones futuras
sobre la inflación y el crecimiento económico. C.
Ejecución de la política monetaria: instrumentos y procedimientos
Al establecer los tipos de interés a los que los bancos comerciales
pueden obtener dinero del banco central, la política monetaria del BCE
influye indirectamente en los tipos de interés de toda la economía de la
zona del euro y, más concretamente, en los tipos de los préstamos
concedidos por los bancos comerciales y los tipos de los depósitos de
ahorro. El BCE utiliza una serie de instrumentos para aplicar su
política monetaria. 1.
Operaciones de mercado abierto
Las operaciones de mercado abierto desempeñan un papel importante a
efectos de controlar los tipos de interés y gestionar la liquidez en el
mercado, además de señalar la orientación de la política monetaria. Las
operaciones de mercado abierto regulares del Eurosistema son las
operaciones de inyección de liquidez en euros a una semana, denominadas
operaciones principales de financiación (OPF), y las operaciones de
inyección de liquidez en euros a tres meses, conocidas como operaciones
de financiación a plazo más largo (OFPML). Las OPF permiten controlar
los tipos de interés a corto plazo, gestionar la liquidez del mercado
monetario y señalar la orientación de la política monetaria de la zona
del euro, mientras que las OFPML aportan otro tipo de financiación a
plazo más largo al sector financiero.
Otras operaciones de mercado abierto no tan regulares son las de
ajuste y las estructurales. Mientras que estas van dirigidas
principalmente a adaptar la posición estructural del sistema del euro
frente al sector financiero de forma permanente, el fin de aquellas es
hacer frente a las fluctuaciones imprevistas de liquidez en el mercado,
en particular con miras a suavizar los efectos sobre los tipos de
interés. 2.
Facilidades permanentes
Las facilidades permanentes proporcionan o absorben liquidez a un
día y el EONIA (índice medio del tipo del euro a un día) mide el tipo de
interés efectivo vigente en el mercado interbancario del euro a un día.
El Eurosistema ofrece a las entidades de crédito dos facilidades
permanentes: la facilidad marginal de crédito, para obtener liquidez a
un día de un banco central, previa presentación de activos admisibles
suficientes, y la facilidad de depósito, para realizar depósitos a un
día en un banco central. 3.
Mantenimiento de unas reservas mínimas
De conformidad con el artículo 19, apartado 1, de los Estatutos, el
BCE puede exigir que las entidades de crédito establecidas en los
Estados miembros mantengan unas reservas mínimas en el BCE y en los
bancos centrales nacionales. La función del sistema de reservas mínimas
es la estabilización de los tipos de interés a corto plazo en el mercado
y la creación (o ampliación) de un déficit estructural de liquidez en
el sistema bancario frente al Eurosistema, lo que facilita el control de
los tipos del mercado monetario mediante operaciones periódicas que
proporcionen liquidez. Los métodos de cálculo y determinación de la
cantidad requerida son fijados por el Consejo de Gobierno. 4.
Medidas no convencionales en materia de política monetaria y respuesta a las crisis
En agosto de 2012, el BCE anunció la posibilidad de llevar a cabo
operaciones monetarias de compraventa (OMC) en firme en los mercados
secundarios de deuda soberana para preservar una transmisión adecuada de
la política monetaria y el carácter único de su política monetaria.
Desde julio de 2013, el BCE ha ofrecido orientación anticipada
sobre la trayectoria futura de su política de tipos de interés, lo que
ha supuesto un cambio importante en su estrategia de comunicación, dado
que ha entrañado informar no solo de la valoración que el BCE hace de
las condiciones económicas actuales y de los riesgos para la estabilidad
de los precios a medio plazo, sino también acerca de las repercusiones
de dicha valoración en la futura orientación de su política monetaria.
En junio de 2014, el BCE anunció una serie de operaciones de
financiación a plazo más largo con objetivo específico (OFPML),
destinadas a aumentar el crédito bancario concedido a las entidades de
crédito de la zona del euro, inicialmente durante un periodo de dos
años. La segunda serie (OFPML II) se inició en marzo de 2016 y una
tercera serie (OFPML III), en marzo de 2019.
Por otra parte, se han ejecutado varios programas de compra de
activos desde 2009 al objeto de mantener el crecimiento en toda la zona
del euro de manera coherente con el objetivo de alcanzar unas tasas de
inflación en niveles inferiores, aunque próximos, al 2 % a medio plazo.
Se trata del programa de compras de bonos corporativos (CSPP), del
programa de adquisición de bonos de titulación de activos (ABSPP) y del
tercer programa de adquisiciones de bonos garantizados (CBPP3). Otros
programas, finalizados ahora, incluyen el Programa para Mercados de
Valores (PMV), el programa de adquisiciones de bonos garantizados y el
segundo programa de adquisiciones de bonos garantizados (CBPP2). El
ritmo mensual de adquisición neta de activos fue inicialmente de 60 000
millones EUR (marzo de 2015 a marzo de 2016) y posteriormente aumentó a
80 000 millones EUR al mes (abril de 2016 a marzo de 2017). A
continuación, la adquisición neta de activos se redujo gradualmente a
15 000 millones EUR al mes (de octubre de 2018 a diciembre de 2018). En
diciembre de 2018, el Consejo de Gobierno decidió poner fin a las
compras netas de activos, con el fin de seguir reinvirtiendo los pagos
principales de valores próximos al vencimiento y mantener las compras
netas acumuladas en cada uno de los programas de adquisición de activos
en sus respectivos niveles. El 12 de septiembre de 2019, el Consejo de
Gobierno decidió reanudar las compras netas de activos a un ritmo
mensual de 20 000 millones EUR a partir del 1 de noviembre de 2019,
confiando en continuarlas durante tanto tiempo como sea necesario para
reforzar el impacto acomodaticio de sus tipos de interés, y finalizarlas
poco antes de que comience a aumentar los tipos de interés clave del
BCE.
Papel del Parlamento Europeo
El BCE es directamente responsable ante el Parlamento Europeo. Esta responsabilidad se ejerce de cuatro formas principales.
De conformidad con el artículo 284, apartado 3, del TFUE y el
artículo 15, apartado 3, de los Estatutos del Sistema Europeo de Bancos
Centrales y del Banco Central Europeo, el presidente del BCE tiene la
obligación de presentar un informe anual al Parlamento Europeo. El
Parlamento suele aprobar una resolución sobre el informe anual del BCE[2].
El presidente del BCE, por costumbre establecida, comparece ante la
Comisión de Asuntos Económicos y Monetarios del Parlamento cuatro veces
al año para explicar las decisiones políticas del BCE y responder a las
preguntas de los miembros de la comisión (diálogo monetario). Estas
reuniones están abiertas al público, y su transcripción se publica en
los sitios web del Parlamento y del BCE. La Comisión ECON confía en que
el grupo de expertos en materia monetaria aporte información y
experiencia independientes antes de cada diálogo monetario[3].
De conformidad con el artículo 140
del Reglamento interno del Parlamento Europeo, formalizado a raíz de un
acuerdo entre el Parlamento Europeo y el BCE, cualquier diputado al
Parlamento Europeo podrá formular al BCE un máximo de seis preguntas con
solicitud de respuesta por escrito al mes.
Por último, el Parlamento Europeo desempeña un papel en el
procedimiento de nombramiento de los miembros del Comité Ejecutivo del
BCE (es decir, el presidente, el vicepresidente y otros cuatro miembros)[4].
Sovereign debt in the euro area: too safe or too risky?
Keynote address by Benoît Cœuré, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at Harvard University's Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies in Cambridge, MA, 3 November 2016
Debt is integral to the functioning of a market economy. The vast
majority of money we use for transactions today is the debt of banks,
bank deposits. Cash itself, that is, coins and notes circulating in the
economy, is a debt of the central bank which used to be redeemable
against gold or against the Treasury. And the counterpart of debt –
credit – facilitates the productive investment through which market
economies grow over time, in turn increasing transactions and demand for
money.
Seen another way, debt and credit help avoid what economists have
called “double coincidence of wants” along two dimensions: by allowing
buyers and sellers to transact at any point in time, and by allowing future earnings to be brought forward for current transactions – so across time.[1] None of the accomplishments of market economies are imaginable without debt-as-money and its credit counterpart.
But if this is the most common understanding today, it is far from
being the only one. In many cultures and languages, the notions of
money, debt and credit have a much broader – and more normative –
meaning. As Keith Hart famously noted, there are two sides to a coin.
Heads is money as a unit of account, means of payment and store of
value: the Aristotelian functions of money, taught in undergraduate
economics. But tails is money as a token of trust in society and its
political institutions.[2]
As for debt, as is well-known, in most Indo-European languages there is a close connection between “debt” and “guilt”.[3]
But perhaps more importantly, there is an affinity between “credit” and
“trust”, since all monetary systems, going back to the earliest times,
have ultimately been built on trust.[4] And I find this relevant because “trust” is at the heart of the crisis we have experienced in the euro area in recent years.
Indeed, more than any other advanced economy, the euro area has
experienced how quickly trust in the sustainability of public debt can
form and then transform, and with it perceptions of “creditworthiness”.
In our case, it has shifted from one pole to the other. Public debt has
been seen as both too safe and too risky.
Too safe, because the widespread belief before the crisis
that the debt of different euro area sovereigns was interchangeable
fuelled an unwarranted spread compression and contributed to major
financial and macroeconomic imbalances.
And too risky, because the rapid unwinding of those beliefs
cascaded through the financial system and government finances, pushing
the euro area into a deeper and more prolonged crisis than other
advanced economies.
Accordingly, there is a rift in Europe between those economists and
politicians who want public debt to be safe again, and those who want it
to be riskier. But looking forward, neither extreme is sustainable.
This is because we need public debt to be safe in the euro area. It
is vital to the functioning of the financial system, analogous to the
function of money in the real economy. And it allows governments to play
their proper role in stabilising the economy, which is essential in the
institutional design of our monetary union. So if sovereign debt is too risky,
it will place the full burden on other actors to provide safe assets
for the financial sector and safe liabilities for governments.
And because unsustainable fiscal policy can ultimately create
pressure on the central bank to monetise debt, what is known by
economists as "fiscal dominance", even in a fiat money system impaired
creditworthiness of governments ultimately creates the risk of an
eroding trust in the ultimate safe asset: central bank money.
Yet at the same time, we also do not want public debt to be perceived as too safe,
since that would eliminate the role of market discipline in delivering
sustainable policies and create a false belief that governments cannot
fail.[5]
However strong our fiscal rules, our political systems cannot credibly
deliver the promise that governments will never default on their debt –
unless the central bank would commit to bailing them out no matter what,
which the euro area by-laws have formally excluded[6].
What I would like to discuss today is how we might go about squaring the circle between risk and safety.
Risk and safety in the euro area
What is the fundamental difference between “safe” and “risky” assets?
It is ultimately about how they behave in financial crises. The prices
of safe assets correlate negatively with risk aversion: in
financial crises, demand for them soars, driving up their prices and
pushing down their yields. This is because they contain no uncertainty
about future payments, which means that holders of safe assets have no
reason to pass judgement about their probability of default in difficult
times.
Admittedly, the definition is partly self-referential. In the end,
assets are just as safe as they are expected to be and as a consequence
they are prone to abrupt shifts in confidence. Yet perceptions of safety
can be established by making assets intrinsically safe (or safer), by guaranteeing their safety through government or central bank action, or labelling
them safe to confirm their safety (e.g. using credit ratings or
regulatory labelling – a less convincing option, as the failure of
credit ratings has shown in the Great Financial Crisis).[7] Safety is, in other words, an outcome of an institutional and legal framework.[8]
In most advanced economies, the institutional framework has been designed to ensure that certain types of assets are always perceived as safe given their importance to the functioning of the economy.
The most important is the ultimate safe asset, base money
(or cash), where safety is guaranteed by two factors: trust in the
central bank that protects its value and trust in the rule of law – the
security of contract, the fairness of the judicial process, and so on.
These institutions help us understand why, even as trust in some euro
area sovereigns waned during the crisis, trust in the euro as a currency
remained high across the Union and beyond.[9]
There was never any question that the central bank would sacrifice
price stability or that the rule of law would be compromised.
The same logic applies to private bank money. States have
ensured the safety of bank money by guaranteeing the share most relevant
for transactions, i.e. deposit insurance, and in exchange they hold
banks to a “social contract” through a high degree of supervision and
regulation.[10]
What we have learned in the euro area, however, is that this contract
depends on a uniform institutional framework across the area of
jurisdiction, otherwise bank money is liable to fragment. The response
in 2012 was Banking Union, which re-establishes the contract at the
level of the Union.[11]
And in most advanced economies, as well as in most macroeconomic models, government debt
is always perceived to be safe, too. There is (effectively) full
consolidation between the balance sheet of the central bank and that of
the fiscal authority, making government debt risk-free in nominal terms.
The central bank can guarantee its payment in cash and at par in all
states of the world. As such, there is no credit risk attached to
sovereign bonds, although they may still carry inflation risk if the
central bank is pressured by the government into financing inflationary
deficits.
In the euro area, however, the same institutional relationships
cannot apply. There is one central bank and nineteen different fiscal
authorities, the member countries do not assume responsibilities for
each other’s debt, and the European Central Bank (ECB), for very good
reasons, is forbidden by the Treaty from “monetary financing” – which
means purchasing directly the debt of governments or directly lending to
them.
This ensures that fiscal transfers do not take place through the
central bank that have not been authorised by euro area citizens, and it
avoids fiscal dominance over monetary policy, which would jeopardise
the pursuit of price stability. Yet it also means that euro area
government bonds are equivalent, in some ways, to “sub-sovereign”
issues, since the different fiscal authorities and the central bank
cannot be consolidated within a single “federal” balance sheet.
German and Greek government bonds are not guaranteed by any European
authority, just as bonds issued by California or Arkansas are not
guaranteed by the federal government or by the Federal Reserve. And
while the establishment of a permanent crisis resolution mechanism, the
European Stability Mechanism (ESM), has created a backstop for national
budgets, it is limited in size, conditional on adjustment programmes,
and is an inter-governmental, not a federal, instrument. Sovereign debt
in the euro area is thus exposed to credit risk in a way other advanced
economies are not.
And this is indeed by design. The construction of the euro area – the
monetary financing prohibition enshrined in the EU Treaty, the “no
bailout clause”[12]
– is deliberately intended to encourage markets to differentiate
between euro area sovereigns based on their fiscal sustainability. The
idea is that the exercise of market discipline will provide a continuous
assessment of government actions, which will in turn lead to sounder
policies.
This is necessary because, in a monetary union, unsound national
fiscal policies have major spillovers to other countries and to the
single monetary policy. And insuring against that risk across countries
would entail a degree of sovereignty-sharing which the European people
are not willing to concede. Decision-making on fiscal policies in the
euro area is therefore decentralised among sovereign states, guided only
by a set of fiscal rules – the Stability and Growth Pact – which the
centre – the European Commission, the Council of Ministers – has limited
power to enforce.
So just as for the states in the US with their balanced budget rules,
the possibility that creditors might take losses is crucial to add
credibility to the fiscal framework. Or put another way, it is important
that debt is not “too safe” in the euro area – meaning that losses are
excluded – otherwise the full burden for ensuring fiscal sustainability
would end up on the fiscal rules, a promise which experience has shown
not to be credible, or on the expectation that the central bank will
eventually bail out governments, which the Treaty has explicitly ruled
out.
The fact that euro area sovereign bonds are exposed to credit risk in
this way does not mean, in principle, that they cannot also serve as
safe assets. The difference is that they have to be made safe through sound fiscal policies, rather than assumed to be safe. And it is indeed clear from the structure of euro area government bond yields that credit risk is partly responsive to the outcome of fiscal policies.
Yet what we have seen in the euro area is that, ex post,
sound fiscal policies alone are not sufficient to make sovereign bonds
safe. This is because the application of market discipline, when it
comes, is often imperfect. Credit risk premia tend not to increase in a
continuous way that leads endogenously to better fiscal and economic
policies, but are instead non-linear.[13]
Credit risk is under-priced in good times when risk aversion is low,
and then rapidly re-priced in bad times when risk aversion spikes. The
result is excessive price volatility.
And in situations where such non-linearities arise, it may also lead
to self-fulfilling dynamics – what economists call “multiple
equilibria”. When sovereign bond yields rise and prices fall, demand for
bonds should normally rise. But if yields rise steeply to a point that
calls into question solvency, demand actually falls, producing a vicious circle. And if there is any correlation between credit risk perceptions across government borrowers, this process in one country can create contagion to others.
Indeed, while eight euro area governments entered the crisis with AAA-rated sovereign issues, today only three have that status.[14] Market discipline has destroyed safe assets more than it has created them.
One response to this, which is now being fiercely discussed in the
euro area, is to apply regulatory constraints and/or risk weights to
sovereign bonds, thus encouraging systemic sectors – banks, pension
funds, insurers – to appropriately consider their risk of default. This
would in principle make market discipline more linear and effective ex ante. And coupled with proposals for mechanisms for orderly sovereign default[15], it might also help attenuate the severity of crises.
Yet it would also be a partial equilibrium solution, since it would reduce the ability of domestic banks to act ex post
as a contingency liquidity buffer to their sovereigns, and that may
leave bond markets even more at risk of multiple equilibria. In the
absence of an alternative fiscal backing, sovereign yields might in
other words increase more in times of financial stress. All in
all, however desirable it may be from a prudential perspective, it seems
odd to discuss this proposal without considering its fiscal
consequences.
Taken in isolation, such proposals are therefore unlikely to resolve
the tension between market discipline and safe assets in the euro area.
And this matters, for two reasons.
First, because sovereign debt provides a safe asset for the
financial system, which is increasingly dependent on a sufficient supply
of such assets. And if sovereigns are not supplying safe assets, then
someone else has to.
Second, because sovereign debt provides a safe liability for
the government through which it can stabilise the economy. And if
governments are unable to perform this role in the euro area, there is
insufficient stabilisation at the national level, and by implication
also for the euro area as a whole.
Sovereign debt as a safe asset
Sovereign debt is highly prized in the financial system for its
function as a safe asset, and safe assets in turn perform two vital
roles in the system, which make them a close substitute of money.
First, they provide a low-risk and liquid store of value,
which is key for long-term investors, such as pension and insurance
funds, and more generally for meeting regulatory liquidity and solvency
requirements. And demand for both functions has increased significantly
due to recent regulatory changes in the EU which translate the global
financial regulatory overhaul.
Changes to capital requirements for insurers and pension funds, for
example, have been specifically designed to encourage them to match the
duration of their assets and liabilities, raising demand for long-dated
sovereign issues. The new Liquidity Coverage Ratio induces banks to
increase holdings of high quality liquid assets, of which government
bonds are major part. And the shift of a large number of OTC derivatives
transactions to central counterparties (CCPs) elevates demand for safe
assets for use in initial margin and guarantee funds.
Second, safe assets act as a means of exchange, especially for the non-bank financial system which cannot settle claims with central bank money.[16]
Market-based finance is, by and large, organised around collateralised
lending, which creates high demand for safe and therefore
low-price-volatility (or information insensitive) collateral. In this
context safe sovereign bonds play a special role. And such “transaction
demand” for safe assets is also structurally increasing as financial
intermediation shifts from the bank to the non-bank sector.[17]
For these reasons, if the net supply of safe sovereign bonds suddenly
contracts, as we saw in the euro area, it is extremely disruptive for
the financial system – analogous to expansions and contractions in the
supply of cash. And such disruptions are obviously something that public
policymakers have to be sensitive to.
The ECB, like other central banks, has therefore responded to the
reduction in safe assets during the crisis – both euro area sovereigns
and AAA-rated asset-backed securities – by swapping central bank money
for assets with duration and credit risk. Since central bank reserves
are perceived as the ultimate safe assets, this has increased the
relative supply of risk-free assets in private portfolios.
Central banks’ role here is justified, for the time being, since if
safe assets are becoming increasingly important as both stores of values
and media of exchange, then one could argue that they increasingly have
“moneyness”. And stabilising money is what central banks are for –
insofar, in the ECB's case, as we do not breach the prohibition of
monetary financing.
Yet such policies are clearly not fully satisfying safe asset demand.
In the euro area demand for sovereign bonds provided by highly rated
issuers has remained high, visible for instance in the high cost of
borrowing through repurchase agreements against German Bunds. Borrowing
against bonds issued by lower rated sovereign issuers has by contrast
cheapened, reflecting a higher pricing of safety. So the question is:
who should take responsibility in the medium-term for increasing the
supply of safe assets to meet this demand?
First and foremost, euro area governments should make their
outstanding stock of debt safer by running fiscal policies which are
more responsible and friendlier to growth, so that the
public-debt-to-GDP ratio is seen to be on a declining path. Another
possible solution is for market participants to find ways to generate
more safe assets out of the existing debt stock by diversifying the
idiosyncratic risks in sovereign issues, for instance through so-called
European Safe Bonds.[18]
Yet if governments do not provide more safe assets or markets do not
construct them synthetically, a second-best answer, as I have discussed
elsewhere[19],
is for central banks to operate with permanently higher balance sheets
to compensate for structural changes in the supply of and demand for
safe assets – and potentially to adjust their counterparty frameworks
and capital structures so as also to service the non-bank sector more
directly.
The Fed, for example, now allows money market funds access to its
balance sheet through its Reverse Repo Operations, while the Bank of
England grants access to CCPs. It is also conceivable, as Jeremy Stein
and his co-authors have suggested, for central banks to issue bills to
satisfy safe asset demand in the non-bank system.[20]
And central banks can meet demand for special collateral by re-lending
their bond portfolios, which the ECB is already doing, although this
could be scaled up.
In other words, it is well within central banks’ operational capacity
to play a more structural role in supplying safe assets to the
financial system. That would however suppress a crucial incentive for
governments to improve the safety of their debt.
Sovereign debt as a safe liability
While synthetic bonds or central bank operations might be able to help meet demand for safe assets, they cannot replicate the other vital function of sovereign bonds: to provide safe liabilities
for the government. Neither option helps shield governments from the
types of distortions in sovereign bond markets that I described above
which can constrain their ability to access financial markets.
And this matters because governments must have recourse to their own
safe liabilities to be able to issue debt and stabilise their economies
through downswings in the cycle. If instead sovereign debt becomes positively
correlated with risk aversion, their marginal cost of borrowing will
increase precisely when they most need to issue. That constrains the
ability of fiscal policy to stabilise the economy.
And this point is particularly relevant for the euro area given its
institutional setup at the supra-national level. The euro area is a
monetary union with no joint instruments to absorb local shocks, like a
federal budget. The single monetary policy by definition has to focus on
the area as a whole and cannot address local developments unless they
have a proven impact on the transmission of monetary policy – such as
under our Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) programme, which is
explicitly conditioned on governments being solvent under a financial
assistance programme.
Therefore shock absorption within each member country has to take
place either via the private sector, through financial risk-sharing, or
by each national government individually through its fiscal policy.
There is no doubt that financial market shock absorption must be
enhanced in Europe, which is one aim of the new Capital Markets Union
project.[21]
Encouraging cross-border financing through equity flows instead of debt
flows would clearly make the euro area more resilient. But no one
imagines that we will live in a world where risk-sharing through
financial markets can absorb all idiosyncratic shocks.
Hence the capacity to use fiscal policy counter-cyclically is key,
which means that governments must have access to some form of asset that
acts as a safe haven in crisis times. Otherwise, debt-financed fiscal
policy will in fact be destabilising, since it will depress sovereign
bond prices and trigger ratings downgrades, feeding back into the
financial system through the channels I already described.
So how can we guarantee that sovereigns retain such market access,
while preserving the market discipline on which the euro area depends?
Again, it goes without saying that the solution starts with
governments improving their fiscal frameworks, at the national and at
the European level. Indeed, if markets are confident in medium term
fiscal sustainability, then debt issuance at the bottom of the cycle
should not increase credit risk perceptions, but should rather be seen
as supporting a faster return of the economy to full employment and
hence a stronger fiscal position over time. And again, this has to do
with the growth-friendliness of fiscal policies as well as with
compliance with European rules.
Yet it is also clear that we are not starting today from a blank
slate. Several euro area countries already have high public debts as a
result of the crisis, which leaves them vulnerable to losing market
access. So we need some form of mutualisation which does not compromise
market discipline. Many ways to address this have been discussed in the
literature, but there are basically two possible models.
The first model is that we accept domestic sovereign debt as
inherently risky, just as for US states. It is in my view unlikely that
this model would deliver the amount of fiscal space needed to stabilise
the economy, meaning that we would then have to allow the Union to borrow and spend for local fiscal stabilisation.[22]
This “common fiscal capacity” would not necessarily have to be very
large. Its desirable size relative to national budgets, and to euro area
GDP, is an empirical issue which I do not intend to solve here. As I
have remarked elsewhere[23], I see merits in such a model so long as it is created under the veil of ignorance, meaning that risks are distributed equally ex ante.
Our monetary union was not designed as a transfer union. Therefore any
step in this direction would have to be accompanied by a convergence
process towards more resilient economic structures.
A move towards more fiscal risk-sharing would also require a
commensurate shift towards increased joint decision-making within strong
common institutions accountable to the European Parliament.
The second model is that we split sovereign debt into a “safe” part
and a “risky” part, thereby facilitating both fiscal stabilisation and
market discipline at the national level. In such a set-up, senior debt
would be issued in constrained amounts for counter-cyclical purposes, in
line with cyclical deficits allowed by the fiscal rules, and would be
risk-free from a regulatory perspective. But debt over and above the
amount required for stabilisation (i.e. the structural deficit) would be
subordinated and with clear risks to holders – higher capital ratios
and strict exposure limits would apply to it – thus maintaining market
discipline at the margin.[24] Governments, like private companies, would therefore be able to default “by degree”.
Both models would, over time, lead to a greater supply of safe assets
as well, but that is not primarily the point. Safe assets are a stock concept which can be created in various ways. But safe liabilities are about flow
– the ability to run counter-cyclical deficits when needed – and hence
depend on market access, be it at the federal or national level. It is
important that, in the current discussion on safe assets, this vital
aspect of safety does not get forgotten.
Conclusion
To conclude, let me come back to the “other side of the coin”.
Europe needs reforms if its debt is to meet the multiple expectations
society attaches to it: as a means of payment and store of value for
capital market participants, as a safe liability empowering governments
to perform their stabilisation role, and as a gauge of sovereign default
risk, setting incentives right for governments and market participants.
The alternative – making government debt safe by providing a blanket
central bank guarantee – is popular among economists[25] but was firmly rejected by the European Treaties, in my view for good reasons.
Reconciling these different expectations may require a degree of
fiscal risk-sharing at euro area level. But there is a common point to
both approaches to risk-sharing I have just outlined – the common fiscal
capacity and the “blue/red” bond proposal. Although their features are
different, both need to be underpinned by a set of rules at euro area
level, mutually agreed and enforced by common institutions.
Safe assets are only as safe as they are expected to be, and they are
ultimately backed by legal and institutional commitments. As the
Minister of Finance under the French Restoration, Baron Louis, once
famously said: “If you give me good politics, I will give you good
finances.” Only adherence to a common political project centred on the
euro can secure such commitments in a sustainable manner.[26] And as long as this project is under strain, it is no wonder that the safety of assets will remain under question.
El mandato del Banco Central Europeo es garantizar la estabilidad de
precios manteniendo la tasa de inflación en un nivel inferior, aunque
próximo, al 2 % a medio plazo. Al igual que la mayoría de los bancos
centrales, el BCE influye sobre la inflación fijando los tipos de
interés. Si el banco central quiere actuar contra una inflación
demasiado alta, generalmente incrementa los tipos de interés, lo que
hace que obtener dinero a préstamo resulte más caro y sea más atractivo
ahorrar. Si, por el contrario, quiere luchar contra una inflación
demasiado baja, reduce los tipos de interés.
Puesto que se espera
que la inflación de la zona del euro se mantenga en un nivel
considerablemente inferior al 2 % durante un período prolongado, el
Consejo de Gobierno del BCE ha considerado necesario bajar los tipos de
interés. El BCE tiene tres tipos de interés principales sobre los que
puede actuar: el de la facilidad marginal de crédito para préstamos a un
día a las entidades de crédito, el de las operaciones principales de
financiación y el de la facilidad de depósito. El tipo principal de
financiación es el tipo al que los bancos pueden obtener fondos
regularmente del BCE, mientras que el tipo de depósito es el que se
aplica a los bancos por los fondos depositados en el banco central. Los
tres tipos se han rebajado.
Para mantener el funcionamiento del
mercado monetario en el que los bancos comerciales se prestan dinero,
estos tipos no pueden estar demasiado próximos entre sí. Dado que el
tipo de depósito estaba ya situado en el 0 % y el tipo de financiación
en el 0,25 %, una rebaja de este hasta el 0,15 % implicaba que el tipo
de depósito tenía que bajarse al −0,10 % para mantener esta banda.
La rebaja es parte de un conjunto de medidas diseñadas para garantizar
la estabilidad de precios a medio plazo, que es una condición necesaria
para el crecimiento sostenible en la zona del euro.
¿Tengo que pagar a mi banco para que guarde mis ahorros? ¿Cuál es efecto de este tipo de depósito negativo en mis ahorros?
No habrá ningún efecto directo en sus ahorros. Solo tendrán que
pagar las entidades de crédito que depositen dinero en determinadas
cuentas mantenidas en el BCE. Obviamente, los bancos comerciales podrán
decidir bajar los tipos de interés que pagan a los ahorradores. No
obstante, los consumidores y las empresas pueden obtener crédito a un
precio menor, y esto ayuda a estimular la recuperación de la economía.
En una economía de mercado, el rendimiento del ahorro está determinado
por la oferta y la demanda. Por ejemplo, unos tipos de interés a largo
plazo reducidos son el resultado de un bajo nivel de crecimiento y de un
rendimiento insuficiente del capital. De hecho, las decisiones del BCE
respecto a los tipos de interés beneficiarán en última instancia a los
ahorradores porque están orientadas a favorecer el crecimiento y, en
consecuencia, a crear un entorno en el que los tipos de interés puedan
volver gradualmente a niveles más altos.
¿Por qué castigar a los ahorradores y premiar a los prestatarios?
La actividad principal del banco central es hacer más o menos
atractivo para hogares y empresas ahorrar u obtener crédito, pero esto
no se hace con la intención de castigar o premiar. Al reducir los tipos
de interés y hacer con ello que resulte menos atractivo ahorrar y más
atractivo pedir crédito, el banco central está animando a los ciudadanos
a gastar dinero o a invertir. Si, por otra parte, el banco central sube
los tipos de interés, los incentivos se inclinan más hacia el ahorro y
menos hacia el gasto, lo que podría ayudar a enfriar una economía con
una inflación demasiado alta. Esta forma de actuar no es característica
del BCE, la aplican todos los bancos centrales.
¿Pueden evitar las entidades de crédito el tipo negativo de depósito? ¿Pueden decidir, por ejemplo, mantener más billetes?
Si un banco mantiene más dinero del necesario para respetar las
reservas mínimas y no está dispuesto a prestar a a otros bancos
comerciales, solo tiene dos opciones: mantener el dinero en una cuenta
con el banco central o mantenerlo en efectivo. Pero mantener efectivo
tampoco está libre de costes, aunque solo sea por la necesidad de contar
con un almacenamiento de alta seguridad para los billetes. Por ello es
improbable que los bancos se decidan por esta esta opción. Lo más
probable es que presten dinero a otros bancos o que paguen el tipo
negativo de depósito.
