Very loose monetary policy may allow banks to postpone the termination of credit provision to unproductive corporate customers. We combine unique administrative data at the plant level with detailed exposures of individual banks to a specic asset purchase program shock in Germany to test if shocked banks deter Schumpeterian destruction in the real economy. Our results show that unproductive plants tied to shocked, but financially weak banks are less likely to close. We also show that both entry and exit rates in regional markets with high exposures to the shock are suppressed. Thus, asset purchase programs appear to reduce efficient churn, which may hamper the re-allocation of production factors and aggregate productivity growth.