News release
The Bank of England is today announcing a temporary amendment to its liquidity insurance facilities. The Bank will increase the frequency of existing market-wide sterling operations, Indexed Long-Term Repos (ILTRs), from monthly to weekly over the weeks surrounding the planned EU withdrawal date.
This change will apply from March and will run until end April. This is a prudent and precautionary step, consistent with the Bank’s financial stability objective, to provide additional flexibility in the Bank’s provision of liquidity insurance in the coming months. This mirrors the approach taken by the Bank ahead of, and following, the EU referendum in 2016.footnote [1]
The Bank will continue to monitor market conditions carefully and keep its operations, including their frequency, under review. An accompanying Market Notice provides additional detail and the terms of this operation.
Notes to editors
- The ILTR is the Bank’s regular market-wide sterling operation and forms part of the Bank’s broader liquidity insurance framework. ILTRs allow market participants to borrow central bank reserves (cash) for a six-month period in exchange for other, less liquid assets (collateral). The Bank will only accept collateral of sufficient quality and quantity to protect itself fully from counterparty credit risk.
- Bank of England Market Operations Guide provides further information about ILTRs and the Bank of England’s liquidity insurance framework.
- Please see Additional Indexed Long-Term Repo Operations - Market Notice for The Market Notice for the ILTR.
