Draghi insists €1 trillion is helping
■ The European Central Bank’s (ECB) €1 trillion (£818bn) injection of three-year funds is working its way through the banking system and will serve the economy, the central bank’s head Mario Draghi said yesterday. The ECB lent banks the ultra-long term money in December and February, and Draghi has previously said the operations helped avoid a major credit crunch but that it would take time for the full impact on the economy to become clear. Noting that banks depositing money at the ECB’s overnight facility are to a large extent different from the ones which took money in the liquidity operations, Draghi said in a letter to a member of the European Parliament that “this implies that liquidity has actually been re-directed within the banking system.”