Two TLTRO rounds took place last year. Of Latvian credit institutions, five banks previously expressed interest in the TLTRO instrument. At the first auction, four banks participated, applying for 25 million euro and in the second, one applied (for 60.5 million euro). In the first stage of the TLTRO programme in September 2014, the Eurosystem granted loans to 255 banks in the amount of 82.6 billion euro and in the second stage (December 2014), 306 banks borrowed 129.8 billion euro.
In the TLTRO programme, Latvian credit institutions can claim about 560 million euro, and the total amount is around 400 billion euro.
Within the TLTRO programme, euro area credit institutions are granted credit at a low interest rate. The money is granted to commercial banks in eight stages – times per quarter. The programme is aimed at improving bank lending in the euro area.
The decision to launch the TLTRO programme in September 2014 was taken at the 5 June meeting 2014.
Parallel to the TLTRO programme, the Council of the European Central Bank in January 2015 decided to expand its asset purchase programme (PAPP), which has three sub-programmes – the Covered Bond Purchase Programme (CBPP3), which has already been completed, and the Asset-backed Securities Purchase Programme (ABSPP), and these are being supplemented with a third element, initiating purchases of securities emitted by euro area countries, agencies and European inter-state institutions as of 9 March 2015. The total amount of securities purchased by the Eurosystem within the PAPP framework has been set at 60 billion euro per month (over 1.1 trillion during the programme – at least until September 2016 or until the moment the ECB Council has ascertained that the inflation level has been stabilized in accordance with the goal of ensuring an inflation level lower than but close to 2% in the medium term.