Spain bank’s gross ECB borrowing stable in April

MADRID (Dow Jones)

Spain’s banks increased their net borrowings from the European Central Bank in April as banks drew down part of the excess funding they had stashed with the central bank earlier this year

According to data released Monday by the Bank of Spain, net borrowings grew to EUR263.54 billion in April, from EUR227.6 billion in March and EUR42.23 billion in April 2011
The monthly increase was mainly a result of banks using part of the money they had deposited with the ECB’s marginal deposit facility in March following the second ECB tender of unlimited three-year funding
Deposits in this facility fell to EUR53.4 billion in April from a record EUR88.74 billion in March
Gross borrowings--which strips out this deposited cash--stood at EUR316.93 billion in April, up slightly from EUR316.34 billion in March, the data showed
The figure represented a little less than 28% of the gross borrowings by all euro-zone lenders, which last month stood at EUR1.146 trillion
Spanish banks have in recent months relied increasingly on funding from the ECB as investors in the private sector remain wary of lending to banks in the fiscally frail southern European economies