ECB said to raise cap on emergency liquidity for Greek banks
The European Central Bank increased the cap on emergency liquidity for Greek lenders for the fourth time in less than a week, said a person familiar with the matter.
The Governing Council raised the limit on the funds in a telephone conference on Tuesday, the person said, without specifying the size of the increase. The person asked not to be identified as the call was private. An ECB spokeswoman declined to comment.
Policy makers lifted Emergency Liquidity Assistance by about 1.9 billion euros ($2.1 billion) to 87.8 billion euros on Monday, and are setting the aid level almost daily as Greece edges closer to a potential default. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is running out of time to reach a deal with his country’s creditors and end a five-month standoff over bailout payments that risks splitting the euro.
After a day of talks on Monday, leaders from Greece’s 18 fellow euro-zone countries agreed that Tsipras’s government was finally getting serious after it submitted a set of reform measures that began to converge with the terms demanded by creditors. They agreed to step up the pace of negotiations to secure a breakthrough on Wednesday that leaders can sign off at the end of the week.
[Bloomberg]