Quote from Martinghoul:
Guys, please, stop spouting nonsense... You have no clue what you're talking about.
The European banking system is running a liquidity surplus of arnd EUR 100 - 200bn, depending on how you account for it. Most of that money is borrowed from the ECB at 1% (3m and shorter maturity) and then gets placed on deposit at the ECB at 0.25% o/n. The reason they do this has nothing to do with deflation or taking risk. It's simply because, for a lot of banks, the ECB is the only place where their assets can be funded.