The ECB said a total of 50 banks had sought the funds, which were offered at a fixed rate of 1.47 per cent that was established with the US Federal Reserve, which supplies the ECB with dollars.

The funds help commercial banks maintain minimum reserves needed to underpin operations in dollars and which would normally be obtained on interbank markets.

Those markets have frozen however as commercial banks became wary that loans to each other would not be repaid owing to huge losses being suffered following the collapse of the US market for high-risk, or subprime, mortgages.

Money markets determine the availability of credit for vast numbers of people around the globe, from managers trying to fund their businesses to families and students seeking mortgages and personal loans. -- AFP