Monetary policy implementation is one of the most significant areas of interaction between central banking and financial markets. Historically, how this interaction takes place has been viewed as having an important impact on the ultimate objective of monetary policy, for example price stability...

Repo auctions are used to inject central bank funds against collateral into the banking sector. The ECB uses standard discriminatory auctions and hundreds of banks participate. The amount auctioned over the monthly reserve maintenance period is in principle exactly what banks collectively need...