The minimum reserve system is meant to achieve the aims of stabilising money market interest rates and creating (or enlarging) a structural liquidity shortage. In order to achieve the aim of stabilising interest rates, the Eurosystem's minimum reserve system allows institutions to maintain minimum reserves at the average level for the duration of a maintenance period.
The calendar of reserve maintenance periods is published in advance for each year. A reserve maintenance period starts on the settlement day of the main refinancing operation following the meeting of the ECB's Governing Council at which the monetary policy stance is pre-scheduled, and ends the day before the start of the following maintenance period.
Minimum reserves are calculated against the credit institutions' liabilities to non-banking sectors, i.e. households, corporates and government. Liabilities to other institutions subject to Eurosystem minimum reserve requirements, the ECB and the Eurosystem NCBs are excluded. A reserve ratio of 1% is set for liabilities with a maturity of up to two years, while a ratio of 0% applies to liabilities with longer maturities and repo agreements.
The holdings of minimum reserves are remunerated at 0%.