The Governing Council of the European Central Bank has decided to conduct a liquidity-providing supplementary longer-term refinancing operation (LTRO) with a maturity of approximately six months, given the renewed tensions in some financial markets in the euro area. In addition, the ECB decided that the interest rate on the main refinancing operations and the interest rates on the marginal lending facility and the deposit facility will remain unchanged.

The Governing Council of the European Central Bank announced the details of refinancing operations with settlement in the period from 12 October 2011 to 17 January 2012. Among the decisions, the ECB will conduct a liquidity-providing supplementary longer-term refinancing operation (LTRO) with a maturity of approximately six months. The operation will be conducted as a fixed rate tender procedure with full allotment. The rate in this operation will be fixed at the average rate of the main refinancing operations (MROs) over the life of the supplementary LTRO.

With regard to the MROs, the Governing Council also decided to continue conducting them as fixed rate tender procedures with full allotment for as long as necessary, and at least until the end of the last maintenance period of 2011 on 17 January 2012. This procedure will also remain in use for the Eurosystem’s special-term refinancing operations with a maturity of one maintenance period, which will continue to be conducted for as long as needed.

In addition, the ECB decided to remain unchanged the interest rate on the main refinancing operations and the interest rates on the marginal lending facility and the deposit facility at 1.50%, 2.25% and 0.75% respectively.