Glossary
Understand the ECB vocabulary
- Asset
- Austerity
- Balance sheet
- Bank reserves
- Bond
- Bond market
- Carbon footprint
- Central bank
- Central bank governor
- Central bank independence
- Civil society organisation
- Climate and environmental crisis
- Climate neutrality
- Collateral framework
- Corporate Sector Purchase Programme (CSPP)
- Coupon
- Credit Rating Agency (CRA)
- Debt
- Debt sustainability
- Deflation
- Deposit guarantee scheme
- Digital euros
- Eurogroup
- European Central Bank
- European Central Bank's Executive Board
- European Central Bank's Governing Council
- European Central Bank's strategy review
- European Commission
- European Council
- European Court of Justice
- European Green Deal
- European Parliament
- European Stability Mechanism
- European Union Treaties
- Eurosystem
- Eurozone/euro area
- EU taxonomy (for sustainable activities)
- Financial assets
- Financial speculation
- Fiscal rules
- Globalisation
- Green targeted longer-term refinancing operations (green TLTROs)
- Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
- Growth
- Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP)
- Helicopter money
- Household
- Inflation
- Inflation target
- Interest rate
- Investment bank
- Investor
- Key interest rate/policy rate
- Liquidity
- Loan
- Loan guarantees
- Mandate
- Market neutrality
- Member of the European Parliament (MEP)
- Monetary dialogue
- Monetary policy
- Monetary financing
- Negative interest rate
- Pandemic Emergency Purchasing Programme (PEPP)
- Price stability
- Paris Agreement
- Primary mandate
- Private sector
- Quantitative easing
- Real economy
- Risk
- Secondary mandate
- Sovereign debt
- Sustainable finance
- Targeted longer-term refinancing Operations (TLTROs)
- Technocrat
- Treasury
- Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU)
- Universal Basic Income
- US Federal Reserve
Key interest rate/policy rate
A rate that a central bank uses to charge borrowers (banks) and pays depositors (banks). It is the most important rate in the economy and market interest rates are set depending on this rate. The European Central Bank's Governing Council decides on three key interest rates: 1) The interest rate on the main refinancing operations, which provide the bulk of liquidity to the banking system 2) The rate on the deposit facility, which banks may use to make overnight deposits with the Eurosystem 3) The rate on the marginal lending facility, which offers overnight funds to banks in the Eurosystem.
