FRANKFURT (MNI) – The European Central Bank on Tuesday drained
E77.0 billion from the financial system in its weekly operation to
sterilize purchases of Eurozone government bonds, data released by the
bank showed.
On Monday, the central bank reported that it had made no bond buys
in the week ending April 1.
“However, as a result of the quarterly alignment of book values of
assets purchases at a discount towards their nominal values, the rounded
settled amount increased to E77.0 billion” from E76.5 billion the week
prior, the bank explained.
There were bids from 76 banks totaling E121.1304 billion at
Tuesday’s draining operation, the ECB said.
The weighted average allotment rate for today’s operation was
0.59%, the lowest rate was 0.45%, and the highest rate accepted, or the
marginal rate, was 0.64%, the ECB reported.
The drained liquidity takes the form of fixed-term deposits. These
can be used as collateral in the Eurosystem’s refinancing operations.
The central bank will hold another liquidity-absorbing operation next
week to reabsorb this week’s term deposits when they expire, as well as
any additional amounts that might be injected into the financial system
in the event of new bond purchases.
–Frankfurt bureau; +49-69-720142; frankfurt@marketnews.com
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