The eurozone countries are moving towards a banking union, which will give the ECB a central role in regulating the sector.
Having two on the board (and Mr Visco making a third on the council) will give critics of the ECB a field day.
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Some see the leak about the ECB withdrawing funding from those banks as a giant blunder on a day when the president of the ECB, Mario Draghi, said in support of Greece only that the ECB had a "strong preference" for It staying in the euro.
Spain is likely, in our view, to be pushed into a troika (EC, ECB, IMF) programme of some kind during 2012, possibly by losing access to market funding on affordable terms, but more likely by the ECB making a programme for the Spanish sovereign a condition for continued willingness to fund the Spanish banks, which are currently the main buyers of newly issued Spanish sovereign debt.
Rocholl added that the ECB has become a guarantor for the private and public sectors in the eurozone: "The ECB is more than a lender of last resort, not only to the banks, but also to nation-states, " he said.
The European Central Bank said European banks are repaying long-term refinancing loans from the ECB at a slower rate than expected, which led to ideas the ECB will not be tightening its monetary policy any time soon.
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In effect, he turned the ECB into a lender of last resort for governments.
The Europeans have used the ECB as a small town uses a landfill.
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We all also know that the ECB owns a number of Greek bonds that it bought in the secondary market.
The flood of money being pumped into banks by the ECB goes a long way towards easing these funding pressures.
The ECB made a lot of noise in the last few weeks about standing its ground and it has now moved.
The increasing amount of loans that European banks are repaying to the ECB was a sign of that confidence, he said.
So, we are back to the main issue: will we see the ECB play a bigger role in "saving" the euro?
The last time the ECB made a change to its main interest rate was in July, when it was cut from 1%.
And without the ECB as a ready buyer of European sovereign debt when the markets revolt once more, Euro monetary deflation is virtually guaranteed.
The ECB has a pretty generous and broad definition of the assets or collateral it is prepared to take as security for loans to banks.
Recent lending surveys by the Federal Reserve and the ECB showed a larger share of banks tightened their lending criteria in October than in July.
The ECB says a rollover would amount to illegal monetary financing.
Greece hopes to be allowed to buy back debt held by the ECB at a 25% discount, using money borrowed from the European Financial Stability Facility.
The ECB, a more flexible friend, has generously been providing liquidity to American and British banks too, if they have branches or subsidiaries in the euro area.
But the ECB is a large holder of toxic Greek paper and has to stand prepared to buy more each time the market cracks its head open.
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In December 2011 and February 2012, the ECB provided a total of more than 1 trillion euros of low-interest loans to 800 banks across the European Union.
Over the past few months, we have observed, through the borrowings at the ECB, a growing silent run on European banks in the at-risk countries (Spain, Italy).
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Since the ECB has a strict remit to maintain price stability, its dread of high inflation is greater than its fear of recession: hence the rate rise.
The ECB releases a Eurosystem financial statement every week.
But the ECB faces a difficult decision as economic growth is slowing across Europe in response to the US economic downturn and the global squeeze in credit markets.
The ECB maintains a target of below 2% for CPI.
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There is widespread agreement that the ECB needs a president who is able both to communicate the bank's policies effectively and to give the institution a clear and more confident policy direction.
For example, the ECB has a deposit facility that pays interest to banks, an emergency marginal lending facility for overnight borrowing and a weekly refinancing operation in which it lends money to banks.
The ECB faces a difficult balancing act as it is keen to preserve the game's traditions, whilst looking at ways at responding to the success of the IPL and the challenges it has thrown up.
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