Volker Wieland is skeptical regarding new ECB monetary policy measures ("Handelsblatt")

At its meeting at the beginning of March, the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) announced a new series of quarterly targeted longer-term refinancing operations (TLTRO3) with a maturity of two years. They are supposed to help to preserve favourable bank lending conditions. However, according to Volker Wieland, they will also entail risks.

He fears that banks will use freed liquidity to buy government bonds as he explained in an interview with the financial daily "Handelsblatt": "Where government bonds have high yields as in Italy this could be attractive".

The new long-term loans will be launched in September 2019 and will end in March 2021. It is already the third program of this kind of non-standard measures. TLTRO2 will end in mid-2020.

Handelsblatt: "Streit um die neuen EZB-Langfristkredite für Banken" (Paid Content)