Global Money Market Rates Rise as ECB, Others Fail to Reassure

Money-market rates rose, driving the
cost of adoption in Euroes for three calendar months to a six-year high,
after cardinal Banks failed to squelch concerns about year-end cash
needs and losings linked to U.S. subprime mortgage defaults.

The Greater London interbank offered charge per unit for Euro loans rose 3
basis points to 4.81 percent, the peak since May 2001, the
British Bankers' Association said. The addition came even after
the European Central Depository Financial Institution today extended the adulthood of a
regular refinancing operation through the end of the year. The
rates for dollars and lbs also climbed.

The ECB, the Depository Financial Institution of England and the Federal Soldier Modesty have
all offered exigency finances this hebdomad to comfort concerns that
credit statuses will deteriorate at the end of the year. With
banks smarting from more than than $50 billion in credit-related
losses, cardinal Banks are still struggling to encourage
financial establishments to impart to each other.

''Central Banks don't have got the tools to collar this rise in
Libor because the issue is no longer about liquidity, it's about
credit concerns,'' said Toilet Wraith, London-based arch of U.K.
interest-rate scheme at Royal Depository Financial Institution of Scotland Plc, the
second-biggest U.K. bank. ''If Banks aren't willing to impart to
one another, there's nothing cardinal Banks can do.''

The spread between the complaint per unit on three-month interbank euro
loans and the ECB's benchmark rate, which currently stand ups at 4
percent, is the peak since the cardinal depository financial institution took charge of
monetary policy in 1999.

Pounds, Dollars

The charge per unit for three-month credit in dollars climbed 1 basis
point to 5.13 percentage and the charge per unit for lbs rose by the same
amount, increasing to 6.61 percent.

Recognition costs, which first jumped in August when markets
seized up, have got risen in the past two hebdomads as banks' concerns
about support at the end of the twelvemonth intensify. The ECB's
governing council said today it will widen the adulthood of its
regular operation subsiding on Dec. Nineteen to two hebdomads from one to
''satisfy the banking sector's liquidness needs'' for the holiday
period over Christmastide and the end of the year.

The Depository Financial Institution of England yesterday said it will offer commercial
banks finances with longer refund footing because of the hazard that
money marketplaces will ''tighten'' inch late December. The Federal has
also pledged to supply other hard cash through a series of
repurchase understandings into adjacent year.

Depository Financial Institution of England Governor Mervyn King said yesterday there's
a hazard a additional driblet in plus terms ''might impair the balance
sheets of the banking system in the U.S., which would take to a
classic recognition squeeze.''

King drew a differentiation between the rise in recognition costs in
August and September, stemming from the dip in the U.S.
market for subprime mortgages, and the up-to-the-minute increase. He said
the first unit of ammunition was driven by concerns about banks' liquidity
and the up-to-the-minute by concerns about the wellness of their balance
sheets.

''Although that fearfulness have so far run well ahead of realized
losses, it have the possible to take to a additional tightening in
credit conditions,'' said King. ''The depository financial institution will go on to
assess how these developments will impact on the mentality for
inflation.''

To reach the newsman on this story:
John Fraher in Greater London at