On 13th May 2019 the European Central Bank published the information on the amendments to its guidelines on the implementation of monetary policy in the Eurosystem. (Eurosystem comprises the European Central Bank and the national central banks of the Member States whose currency is the euro, is the monetary authority of the euro area.) The ECB among other things states that: „Among the amendments to the monetary policy implementation framework is the further harmonisation of the definition of agencies as issuers or guarantors of debt instruments. In particular, the criteria used for recognised agencies in the collateral framework and agencies eligible for the public sector purchase programme (PSPP) are being aligned.” More information about PSPP may be found here.
Moreover, the Eurosystem incorporated the transparency requirements of the EU Securitisation Regulation (Regulation (EU) No 2017/2402) into its collateral framework. In addition, the Eurosystem is phasing out the use of rating tools from its general framework for monetary policy operations owing to cost-benefit considerations and new applications to become rating tools will not be considered.