Consolidated financial statement of the Eurosystem as at 12 October 2007

In the week ending 12 October 2007, the decrease of EUR 108 million in gold and gold receivables (asset item 1) reflected sales of gold by two Eurosystem central banks (consistent with the Central Bank Gold Agreement of 27 September 2004).

The net position of the Eurosystem in foreign currency (asset items 2 and 3 minus liability items 7, 8 and 9) decreased by EUR 0.1 billion to EUR 142 billion on account of customer and portfolio transactions.

The holdings by the Eurosystem of marketable securities of euro area residents denominated in euro (asset item 7) decreased by EUR 0.6 billion to EUR 96.6 billion. Banknotes in circulation (liability item 1) fell by EUR 0.7 billion to EUR 640.6 billion. Liabilities to general government (liability item 5.1) decreased by EUR 3.2 billion to EUR 57.1 billion.

The Eurosystem’s net lending to credit institutions (asset item 5 minus liability items 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5 and 4) increased by EUR 29.3 billion to EUR 452.7 billion. On Wednesday, 10 October 2007, a main refinancing operation of EUR 163 billion matured and a new one of EUR 218 billion was settled. On Friday, 12 October 2007, a liquidity-absorbing fine-tuning operation in the form of a collection of fixed-term deposits of EUR 30 billion was settled.

Recourse to the marginal lending facility (asset item 5.5) was virtually nil (approximately the same as in the preceding week), while recourse to the deposit facility (liability item 2.2) was EUR 0.3 billion (compared with EUR 4.6 billion in the preceding week).

As a result of all transactions, the current account position of credit institutions with the Eurosystem (liability item 2.1) increased by EUR 36.3 billion to EUR 201.6 billion.