Exclusive: Italian banks tap 116 billion euros of ECB loans

A women walk past a Unicredit bank in Rome November 14, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Stefano Rellandini

By Stefano Bernabei and Luca Trogni

ROME/MILAN | Wed Dec 21, 2011 1:39pm EST

(Reuters) - More than a dozen Italian banks, including top lenders UniCredit (CRDI.MI) and Intesa Sanpaolo (ISP.MI), tapped 116 billion euros ($143.52 billion) of new three-year loans offered by the European Central Bank, nearly a quarter of the total, three sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
The ECB's first ever offer of three-year loans on Wednesday drew demand for a massive 489 billion euros from 523 banks, raising hopes a credit crunch can be avoided and that the money could be used to buy Italian and Spanish bonds.
"It's a 116 billion euros," one senior banking source told Reuters. Two other sources confirmed that amount.
The Italian figure includes 40.4 billion euros of state-backed bank bonds which were used as collateral for the loans. But banks could also offer other types of collateral for the ECB loans, such as government bonds for example.
A document from Italy's stock exchange Borsa Italiana showed 14 banks had listed state-guaranteed bank bonds on the MOT regulated bond market, a pre-requisite for those bonds to be accepted as collateral for the ECB new loans.
The biggest amount, 12 billion euros, of state-backed bonds was taken up by Intesa Sanpaolo (ISP.MI), which confirmed it had used them as collateral for the loans, and said that these would help it complete pre-funding for its wholesale medium and long term maturities for 2012.
The stock exchange document showed Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (BMPS.MI) has listed bonds for 10 billion euros, while UniCredit has floated 7.5 billion euros of bonds.
Among the other 14 banks are Banco Popolare (BAPO.MI) with bonds worth 3 billion euros, Banca Popolare di Sondrio (BPSI.MI), Banca Etruria (PEL.MI), Banca Popolare dell'Emilia Romagna (EMII.MI) and Credito Emiliano (EMBI.MI).