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Saturday, May 04, 2013

Banks to repay ECB 616 million euros of crisis loans

FRANKFURT: Banks will return early 616 million euros ($805.29 million) of crisis loans to the European Central Bank next week, the lowest amount since banks started to repay the funds earlier this year.


Recent economic data have added to signs that the euro zone's downturn is starting to spill over into the core countries, which together with falling inflation and rising unemployment prompted the ECB to cut interest rates further.

To support the banking system, the ECB also decided to provide banks with all the liquidity they ask for at the ECB's refinancing operations at least until July next year.

Banks still decided for the large part to hold on to the three-year money they took from the ECB in two long-term refinancing operations (LTROs) in December 2011 and February 2012, of which the first matures in January 2015.

A year after taking the loans, banks have the option to repay them early and on Friday, the ECB said 1 bank would repay 8 million euros from the first LTRO on May 8 and 5 banks 608 million euros from the second.

A Reuters poll of euro money market traders had expected banks to return a total of 3.3 billion euros next week, more than the 2.3 billion euros banks returned this week.

indiatimes.com

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