Staff meets in Helsinki to discuss new framework
Some favour not remunerating mandatory reserves
Several options for changing corridor
Floor system likely to persist

SINTRA, Portugal, June 26 Reuters Senior European Central Bank staff are meeting in Helsinki this week to work on a new framework for steering shortterm borrowing costs, another step towards ending nearly a decade of easy money, five sources told Reuters.

The meeting of the Market Operations Committee, made up of staff from the ECB and the euro zone39;s 20 national central banks, comes as ECB policymakers gather in Sintra, Portugal for an annual forum hosted by the central bank.

In Finland, staff will consider how the ECB should operate now that inflation and interest rates are high and efforts to curb price growth are being impeded by over 4 trillion euros of excess liquidity sloshing around the banking system the legacy of a decade of crisisfighting stimulus.

The committee will work on how to prepare for a scenario in which liquidity is less abundant, meaning that banks will need to borrow cash from the ECB, as is already starting to happen, to finance their own lending.

The debate includes deciding how to remunerate banks for their minimum and excess reserves, two of the sources with direct knowledge of the discussions said.

An ECB spokesperson declined to comment.

At present, minimum reserves are remunerated at the ECB39;s deposit rate, now 3.5 after a string of interest rate hikes to tame…