ECB's bank funding take up unexpectedly low

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Euro zone banks took up just 3.4 billion euros worth of long-term loans from the European Central Bank on Thursday, an unexpectedly low figure which is just a fraction of how much central bank funding lenders repaid earlier this week.

The ECB launched its fresh round of targeted longer-term refinancing operations (TLTRO) earlier this year to provide lenders with easy access to finance and last week sweetened the terms, lowering the interest rate on the facility and extending its maturity.

Earlier this week banks repaid 31.8 billion euros worth of TLTRO funds and most of these were expected to be rolled over into the new facility.

(Reporting by Balazs Koranyi; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)