Commercial banks could hold them without setting aside any capital reserves, and the European Central Bank (ECB) accepted them on equal terms at its discount window. This created a perverse incentive for commercial banks to buy the weaker governments’ debt in order to earn what eventually became just a few basis points, as interest-rate differentials converged to practically zero.
引入欧元后，当局实际上宣告了成员国政府债券是无风险的。商业银行可以持有这些债券而不必拔备任何资本，欧洲央行的贴现窗口也对它们一视同仁。这造成了一种不当激励，促使商业银行购买疲软国，而随着利差趋近至近零水平，这样做带来的好处最终只不过是区区几个基点。