The US financier J Paul Getty once said: “If you owe the bank $100 that’s your problem. If you owe the bank $100m, that’s the bank’s problem.” Today, European banks owe the European Central Bank almost three quarters of a trillion euros in long-term funding.

In December 2011 and February 2012, the European Central Bank injected cheap three-year liquidity, helping to provide funding to European banks locked out of public markets. So far, around €252.8bn of the €1 trillion of three-year loans has been repaid.