Consolidated financial statement of the Eurosystem as at 19 October 2007

In the week ending 19 October 2007, the decrease of EUR 126 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 0.2 billion to EUR 141.8 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 0.8 billion to EUR 95.8 billion. Banknotes in circulation (liability item 1) fell by EUR 1.9 billion to EUR 638.7 billion. Liabilities to general government (liability item 5.1) decreased by EUR 2.8 billion to EUR 54.4 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) decreased by EUR 17.4 billion to EUR 435.3 billion. On Wednesday, 17 October 2007, a main refinancing operation of EUR 218 billion matured and a new one of EUR 171 billion was settled. On Wednesday, 17 October 2007, a liquidity-absorbing fine-tuning operation in the form of a collection of fixed-term deposits of EUR 30 billion matured.

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 0.7 billion (compared with EUR 0.3 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) decreased by EUR 8.8 billion to EUR 192.8 billion.