国际英语新闻:ECB allots a further half a trillion euros to 800 banks

FRANKFURT, Feb. 29 (Xinhua) -- The European Central Bank (ECB) on Wednesday allotted over half a trillion euros to 800 banks in its second three-year longer term refinancing operation (LTRO).

Taking the amount in the first tender into account, the ECB has injected over 1 trillion euros (1.3 trillion U.S. dollars) into financial institutions in the region. The size of the loan is slightly higher than previously forecasted figures.

It was predicted earlier that the scale of the loans for the second three-year LTRO could be similar to that of the first round, which stood at 489 billion euros.

Rebutting statements that ECB loans with low interest rates of 1 percent carry a stigma, ECB president Mario Draghi earlier said the loans were without problems and called on banks to make good use of them.

Before the tender for the second three-year LTRO, the ECB lowered the requirements of collateral for the loan, paving the way for small banks in the region to gain access to ECB money.

Wang Jidong, a senior manager at the Bank of Communications in Frankfurt told Xinhua banks in the regions could have their financing needs for 2012 and even 2013 met by the relatively cheap loans from the ECB.

One way or another, the loans will ease tensions on the market. According to Wang's estimate, some 100 billion euros of the 489 billion euros from the first round of three-year loans went to the real economy, which Draghi mentioned was the primary interest of the ECB.

Draghi has repeatedly made it clear that the first round of loans helped avoid a major "credit crunch."

Even if banks choose to capitalize on the bond market for profit, bond yields of some debt-ridden countries were substantially down, Wang said, citing the sharp drop of yields of Italian 10-year government bonds since the beginning of this year.

The ECB has suspended its controversial bond buying program for two straight weeks.

However, Wang also pointed out that banks which have borrowed from the ECB will probably find it harder to meet their financing needs on other markets because most of their quality assets have been used as collateral.

Some banks including the Deutsche Bank did not tap ECB facilities in December. Josef Ackermann, the chief executive officer of Deutsche Bank, was one among many bankers who thought ECB loans could ruin their reputation.

In early February, Draghi said that three-year refinancing operations are non-standard monetary policy measures of a temporary nature.

"Because of their size and complexity, one would certainly not want to pre-commit to making them a permanent feature of our monetary policy," he said, adding that once financing conditions in banking markets return to normal, the special operations would no longer be necessary.

Wang said there is little possibility the ECB will conduct another round of three-year LTROs. As credit default swap prices have dropped about 40 percent and stock markets in Europe have rallied since the beginning of this year, there is no ground for another round of such loans, he said.

In a bid to support bank lending in the euro area, the governing council of the ECB decided in December last year to conduct two LTROs with a maturity of three years. The decision made by the ECB to provide the three-year LTROs came at time when credit was hard to come by and the bond yields of some debt-laden countries remained at high levels.