Demand for the European Central Bank’s next round of three-year loans to banks on February 29 is expected to be at least as big as at last month’s auction, widely hailed as a success. But it remains to be seen whether the auctions will finally get European banks on their own feet.

The ECB lent 523 banks a total of €489 billion ($638 billion) at 1 percent on December 21 in what is known as a long-term refinancing operation (LTRO), providing vital support at a time when few banks were able to use the senior unsecured debt market to raise funds. It was the first ever three-year operation by the ECB, which had previously offered one-year loans in 2009. Euro zone banks have to refinance €600 billion of debt maturing in 2012, according to Dealogic, with about €230 billion of that amount maturing in the first quarter.....

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