The European Central Bank plans to expand currency safety nets to make it easier for foreign central banks to borrow euros, ECB President Christine Lagarde said on Monday, in a bid to strengthen the single currency’s global standing.
The push comes amid concerns over financial fragmentation and growing uncertainty around the future of the US dollar under President Donald Trump.
Lagarde said the ECB would work on swap lines, which act as a source of emergency liquidity at times of crisis by allowing foreign central banks to borrow euros in exchange for their own currency.
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“We will be working on swap lines that will be more responsive to the imperative of having a sovereign euro area and a strong euro,” Lagarde told European lawmakers.
Swap lines relieve pressure on foreign borrowers but also prevent stress abroad from spilling over into the euro area. The ECB has such arrangements with the US Federal Reserve and the central banks of Japan, Britain, Canada and Switzerland.
The move is part of an ongoing ECB effort to expand the euro’s international footprint.
The ECB has received nearly 30 applications for a separate lending facility – known as repurchase agreements or repo – that allows foreign banks to borrow against euro collateral.
Central bank officials and investors worry that the US Federal Reserve might eventually cut its own swap lines, which currently serve as the main global lifeline for trillions of dollars in foreign loans.
