Banque de France will make its holdings of securities available for lending through Euroclear’s GC Access Facility, in a move to increase liquidity in the bond and repo markets.
The facility will apply to all of Banque de France’s holdings of securities purchased under the public sector purchase programme (PSPP).
Launched by the European Central Bank (ECB) in January 2015, the PSPP has been designed to fulfil the ECB’s price stability mandate.
The aim is to further ease monetary and financial conditions until at least March 2017.
The PSPP has involved buying large amounts of sovereign, agency and supranational bonds by encouraging national central banks to lend securities if requested by eligible counterparties via securities lending facilities.
The deal will mark the first time that Banque de France has appointed an external agent to provide securities lending operations which has usually been done through bilateral loans to market participants.
Banco de Portugal also currently uses Euroclear’s facility for securities lending.
Banque de France teams up with Euroclear for sec lending
Banque de France will make its holdings of securities available for lending through Euroclear’s GC Access Facility, in a move to increase liquidity in the bond and repo markets.