BERLIN - THE European Central Bank on Friday added weeklong cash injections to a growing list of measures designed to stabilise shaky global markets and nudge banks away from the instinct to hoard their available funds.

The Frankfurt-based ECB, the central bank for the 15 countries that use the euro, said in a statement that it would offer up to US$35 billion (S$50 billion) in weekly liquidity to European banks in an effort to keep money flowing between banks that have grown reluctant to lend to one another.

On Wednesday, the ECB announced that it would offer US$40 billion in overnight cash to those same European banks.

The US also plowed US$30 billion into money markets overseas this week, part of an ongoing effort to fight a global credit crisis.

Those moves follow a series of concerted actions last week with central banks in Canada, the US and Japan to supply cash to banks wary of lending to one another in the aftermath of the bailout of major insurer American International Group and the bankruptcy of US investment bank Lehman Brothers.

And the ECB's announcement on Friday came after more bad news from the US, as lawmakers appeared in deadlock over a potential bailout plan and federal regulators forced the giant lender Washington Mutual to sell much of itself to JPMorgan Chase.