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SYDNEY, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Australia's central bank pumped extra cash into the banking system for a fourth day on Thursday, bringing its injection this week to A$11.2 billion ($8.8 billion), as it sought to ease funding pressures amid the global credit rout.

In its regular daily money market operation, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) added a total A$3.015 billion in cash. That was well above the market's estimated cash need of A$2.2 billion, further fattening commercial banks' cash cushion with the central bank.

The injection comes as panic in global markets led banks to hoard cash, sending interbank lending rates sharply higher, while investors fled risk of all kinds.

Central banks around the world have responded by flooding markets with cash, but with only limited success as U.S. dollar lending rates in particular remain far above normal levels.

A key measure of funding pressure in Australia is the spread between three-month bank bill rates and three-month overnight index swap (OIS) rates. That had surged to a near-record of 80 basis points, up from around 33 basis points at the start of the month.

Bank bill/OIS spreads are seen as an indication of banks' willingness to lend to one another, with a wider spread suggesting tougher lending conditions.

(Reporting by Wayne Cole; Editing by Jonathan Standing)

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