A plan to breathe life into the moribund eurozone economy has got off to a disappointing start with commercial banks shunning a new type of cheap finance on offer for the first time from the European Central Bank.
The ECB said yesterday that 255 banks had taken up only €82.6 billion (£65 billion) of the new loans, far less than the €100 billion to €200 billion predicted by analysts. The average forecast in a Reuters poll of 20 economists was that €133 billion would be borrowed.
The cut-price loans, targeted longer-term refinancing operations — always abbreviated to TLTROs and pronounced teltroes — are the latest attempt by Mario Draghi, the ECB president, to encourage banks to boost their lending to businesses.
Banks pay only 0.15