Key euro-priced interbank lending costs eased on Friday, pressured by a high level of excess cash in money markets while US rate futures traders pared back bets on a Federal Reserve rate hike after a weak jobs report. Analysts said while a European Union blueprint to share the cost of bank failures among corporate bondholders could make bank funding more expensive in the longer term, ample liquidity injections from the European Central Bank (ECB) were keeping interbank rates subdued.
Benchmark London interbank offered rates (Libor) for three-month euros inched lower to 0.93188 percent from 0.93313 percent. The equivalent Euribor rate - traditionally the main gauge of unsecured interbank euro lending - was fixed unchanged at its lowest level since mid-October at 0.997 percent, having fallen below 1 percent on Tuesday.
Euro zone bank-to-bank lending rates have been falling in recent weeks as the ongoing debt problems in the single currency bloc forced the ECB to extend its limit-free lending to banks to mid-April. Overnight Eonia fixed at 0.38 percent and is expected to stay well below the ECB's main refinancing rate of 1 percent in the first quarter of the year with the central bank unlikely to change its stance on full liquidity allotment. The central bank is expected to keep interest rates on hold at a record low of 1 percent at its policy meeting next week. Economists polled by Reuters forecast the central bank to keep them there until the fourth quarter of 2011.
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