By Sonia Sirletti
Aug. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Italian banks’ borrowings from the European Central Bank rose in July as the sovereign debt crisis limited access to funding sources and increased financing costs.
Total borrowing by Italian banks rose to 283.3 billion euros ($351 billion) from 281.4 billion euros in June, the Bank of Italy said on its website today. The increase was due to the ECB’s main refinancing operations, the data showed.
Italian banks have used three-year emergency loans and refinancing operations from the ECB to cover funding needs and buy the country’s debt as the crisis makes it harder for lenders to access the interbank market and reach wholesale investors. Italy isn’t planning to tap the European rescue fund for the moment, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said last week.
Borrowings from the main refinancing operations rose to 13.8 billion euros from 11.7 billion euros a month earlier. Loans from longer-term refinancing operations were stable at about 270 billion euros, the data showed. Lenders in the euro area have borrowed about 1.21 trillion euros from the ECB, according to central bank data as of July 27.