The European Central Bank said 278 banks will hand back 137.2 billion euros ($184.4 billion) of its three-year loans next week at the first opportunity for early repayment. That compares with the median forecast of 84 billion euros in a Bloomberg News survey of economists. Some 150 billion euros of the first three-year loan, which totaled 489 billion euros, will be given back early as banks continue to repay the funds over coming weeks, according to the survey. The Frankfurt-based central bank flooded financial markets with two tranches of three-year loans, so-called Longer Term Refinancing Operations, a year ago to ... (full story)