French apex bank said that the banking sector, which reflects not only loans for monetary policy but also market operations, grew to EUR218.2bn in December 2011, against EUR166.6bn in November.
The central bank also revealed that the sum has surpassed the previous record of EUR215.3bn registered in December 2008, during the financial crisis of 2008-2009, reuters.com reported.
A spokeswoman of the Bank of France quoted by the news agency as saying the amount of EUR218bn … covers not only monetary policy but also all the Bank of France’s market operations. The operations of monetary policy … totaled EUR119.6bn in financing operations.
Headquartered in Germany, the European Central Bank (ECB) pumped EUR489bn at the 1% interest rate for three-year liquidity into the banking system in December 2011, to avert the negative impact of credit crunch and keep loans flowing to the euro zone economy.
The central bank of France revealed that nearly EUR107bn has been hold by French banks in long-term refinancing from the Bank of France as of 17 January 2012.
