Consolidated financial statement of the Eurosystem as at 28 March 2008

The exceptional circumstances in one Eurosystem central bank, which prevented that central bank from producing its balance sheet as at 7 March, 14 March and 21 March 2008, have also prevented the production of a balance sheet as at 28 March 2008. Consequently, this week’s Eurosystem consolidated financial statement reflects the latest available balance sheet information provided by the Eurosystem central bank in question, namely that of its financial statement as at 29 February 2008.

In the week ending 28 March 2008 the decrease of EUR 1 million in gold and gold receivables (asset item 1) reflected the sale of gold by one Eurosystem central bank (consistent with the Central Bank Gold Agreement that came into effect on 27 September 2004).

The net position of the Eurosystem in foreign currency (asset items 2 and 3 minus liability items 7, 8 and 9) increased by EUR 10.3 billion to EUR 149.3 billion on account of a US dollar liquidity-providing operation, which was settled on 27 March 2008 (an operation conducted by the Eurosystem in connection with the temporary reciprocal currency arrangement (swap line) between the ECB and the Federal Reserve System), and customer and portfolio transactions.

The holdings by the Eurosystem of marketable securities of euro area residents denominated in euro (asset item 7) increased by EUR 1 billion to EUR 108.3 billion. Banknotes in circulation (liability item 1) decreased by EUR 4.7 billion to EUR 661 billion. Liabilities to general government (liability item 5.1) increased by EUR 4.2 billion to EUR 77.1 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) decreased by EUR 0.3 billion to EUR 483.3 billion. On Wednesday, 26 March 2008, a main refinancing operation of EUR 202 billion matured and a new one of EUR 216 billion was settled. On Thursday, 27 March 2008, a longer-term refinancing operation of EUR 48.5 billion matured and a new one of EUR 50 billion was settled. On Tuesday, 25 March 2008, a liquidity-providing fine-tuning operation of EUR 15 billion matured.

Recourse to the marginal lending facility (asset item 5.5) was virtually nil (compared with EUR 0.5 billion in the preceding week), while recourse to the deposit facility (liability item 2.2) was EUR 1 billion (compared with EUR 0.7 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 3.8 billion to EUR 223.4 billion.