The European Central Bank's targeted long term refinancing operations saw European banks take up 7.3 billion Euros in loans, less than the 18.3 billion Euros that were borrowed in December. The TLTRO was launched to help banks to boosting lending to consumers and is into its seventh round of lending. In total, European banks have taken a total of 426 billion Euros since the program was launched in 2014. Yesterday's TLTRO operation comes under the old rules but starting June, the TLTRO-II will be launched where the ECB will pay banks to take the loans to boost lending.
