ECB released its weekly statement for the week ending on 27 July.

Asset Side

On the asset side, the weekly USD liquidity-providing operation increased $3.8bn, from $4.2bn to $8bn, after a drop in the previous operations, returning to an upward trend in USD liquidity operations. Lending to credit institutions decreased by €33.7bn through a lower MRO of €26bn and LTRO of €8.2bn. Nevertheless, ‘Other Claims’ (ELA) increased by €46.7bn, a very large increase mainly due to Greek government bonds not being accepted as collateral by the ECB anymore. Still, Greek banks do not have a (Greek government bond) portfolio of such an amount so the increase probably includes other borrowing difficulties. Overall, the financing operations had a net increase of €13bn during the last week.

Liabilities Side

Banknotes grew €1bn while bank reserves increased by €10.2bn, with current accounts continuing to grow (with funds flowing from the deposit facility) General government accounts decreased by €7bn while ‘Other liabilities’ (in the same category with government deposits) increased again by €1bn. After increasing by only 0.9bn, ‘Liabilities to non euro area residents’ grew substantially by 11.9bn this week, pointing to renewed euro outflows.

New MRO

This week’s MRO stopped the previous downward trend since it recorded bids of 132.8bn compared with €130.7bn during the previous week. Although the increase was not much it is a return to a growth path.