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European Bank, Bank of England, Swiss National Bank offer combined $120bn

by Sanjay Jha | October 9, 2008 at 01:17 am | 35 views | add comment | 0 recommendations

Top honchos of finance departments from the world's richest nations meet in Washington on Friday for a crucial but uncertain meeting at a time of unprecedented fear about the global financial system. In the meantime european banks have altogether pumped in more than $120 bn combined to keep market afloat. These are in addition to measures taken by American government.

European central banks continued to push liquidity at the financial sector on Thursday offering $120bn in combined overnight operations.

The European Central Bank, representing the 15 countries that use the euro currency, offered $100bn, while the Bank of England and the Swiss National Bank each offered $10bn.

Terms of the offers are similar to those in the past. More information on the offers was expected later in the day.

The three European central banks have steadily offered money to the financial sector over recent weeks in an effort to prop up lending between banks.

Thursday's overnight dollar offers follow a surprise announcement Wednesday that the three banks, along with other central banks including the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of Canada, had dropped their interest rates in a coordinated move.