The increase in TARGET balances in the euro area since 2015

Pana Alves, Antonio Millaruelo and Ana Del Rio

Economic Bulletin, 2018, issue DEC, No 35

Abstract: The TARGET2 platform, which is owned by the Eurosystem, processes payments in euro with reserves, i.e. central bank money. The cross-border payment transactions channelled through this platform give rise to central bank claims and liabilities which, when aggregated and netted, produce the so-called TARGET balances. Since 2015, when various extraordinary monetary stimulus measures were introduced by the ECB, there has been a marked increase in aggregate TARGET balances, to levels above those reached during the sovereign debt crisis which took place in the first few years of the current decade. Unlike then, the recent developments do not reflect financial stress or general funding problems in euro area economies, as during the sovereign debt crisis, but are instead mainly linked to the execution of the Eurosystem’s asset purchase programme (APP).

Keywords: payment system; TARGET balances; TARGET2; bank reserves; asset purchases; APP (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E42 E50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
Note: Analytical Articles
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.bde.es/f/webbde/SES/Secciones/Publicac ... /beaa1804-art35e.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bde:journl:y:2018:i:12:d:aa:n:35

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Economic Bulletin from Banco de España Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ángel Rodríguez. Electronic Dissemination of Information Unit. Research Department. Banco de España ().