Spain Banks Boost Borrowing From ECB by 50 Percent in March

Spanish banks’ borrowings from the European Central Bank jumped by almost 50 percent in March, reaching the most on record, as lenders tap emergency loans and channel some of it into sovereign debt purchases.

Average net borrowings by Spanish banks climbed to 227.6 billion euros ($300 billion) last month from 152.4 billion euros in February, the Bank of Spain said on its website today. Spanish lenders took 29 percent of the total long-term loans offered to euro-region banks, the data showed. That includes the three-year long-term refinancing operation loans known as LTRO.