With the start of the ECMS on 16 June 2025 the Deutsche Bundesbank maintains a counterparty pool (collateral account) for each monetary policy counterparty in the ECMS. In such a counterparty pool, valued collateral stock is compared with the total utilisation of monetary policy credit. The collateral accounts used for other purposes remain in the local systems for the time being. They will only be managed in ECMS at a later point in time.

The Bundesbank uses a pooling system in connection with the collateralisation of Eurosystem credit operations. The main feature of this flexible procedure is that, instead of allocating individual eligible assets to specific monetary policy operations, the lending values of all the submitted assets are pooled in a collateral account.

Contact details for questions regarding the settlement of monetary policy operations and the mobilisation of collateral can be found under Contact.

Marketable assets may be submitted to the Bundesbank in the form of a pledge, and non-marketable assets may be submitted by way of (undisclosed) assignment. The following means of submission are available.

• Domestic securities pledge in favour of the Bundesbank via Clearstream Banking Frankfurt (CBF)
• Mobilisation and Administration of Credit Claims (MACCs) for the domestic use of credit claims
• Cross-border use of assets via the correspondent central banking model (CCBM)
• Cross-border use of marketable assets via links between securities settlement systems (SSS Links)
• Pledging a global amount via CmaX

The lending value of a counterparty's collateral account, which is calculated daily by the Bundesbank, must cover the total amount of the counterparty's borrowing. Provided the lending value required to collateralise refinancing operations is not undershot, assets may generally be released.

Submission of marketable assets

1. Domestic: Eligible securities deposited at Clearstream Banking Frankfurt (CBF) may be transferred via the CASCADE securities settlement system to the safe custody account held there by the Bundesbank.
2. Eligible securities deposited in other Eurosystem member states may be used on a cross border basis under the corresponding central banking model (CCBM). The national central banks maintain safe custody accounts with each other for this purpose.In addition the provison of triparty-global amounts via the CCBM is admitted. Accredited is the triparty-System CmaX of Clearstream Banking S.A. Luxembourg and Central Bank Access Service via Euroclear Banking.
3. The securities named in item 2 may also be transferred between securities settlement systems (SSSs) via eligible links. In order to do this, the foreign custodian must be instructed to transfer the collateral to the Bundesbank's safe custody account at CBF or Clearstream Banking Luxemburg (CBL). For this purpose, the foreign depositary must be instructed to transfer the collateral to the custody account of Deutsche Bundesbank at CBF.

Submission of non-marketable assets

With the introduction of ECMS for domestic counterparties, the specialist application MACCs is still available for the mobilisation and administration of credit claims under German law (so-called “domestic use”). After a submission, update or redemption, the bank credits the collateral value to the counterparty's collateral account (counterparty pool) in ECMS; this collateral value is shown in the collateral account as generated outside the Eurosystem's joint procedure (Externally Managed Collateral).

Cross-border use of credit claims takes place exclusively via ECMS.