Banks repaid 137 billion euros to ECB this week.

FRANKFURT: Banks will pay back another 3.5 billion euros next week of the emergency 3-year loans they took from the European Central Bank a year ago, further deflating the ECB's balance sheet after they paid back a whopping 137 billion euros this week.

The repayments, which the ECB said would be made by 27 banks, compared to a prediction of 20 billion euros from a Reuters poll of traders, although forecasts had varied widely from zero to 150 billion euros.