A member of the European Central Bank's governing council has said the bank could take exceptional measures to help bank liquidity for longer than one year to avoid a credit crunch on the inter-bank lending market.
Yves Mersch was speaking to Luxembourg radio in response to a question about a Reuters report earlier this week.
The news agency said the ECB was looking at extending the term of loans it offers banks to two or even three years to try to prevent the euro zone crisis from precipitating a credit crunch.
"We see indeed that there are problems for the banks in that they cannot refinance themselves beyond the (time) that they are lent money by the ECB, which is one year maximum," Mersch said.
He said that if another "exceptional" measure from the ECB were needed, it would be in this area, as it was within the bank's mandate.
