FXstreet.com (Barcelona) - Figures released by the ECB yesterday showed that use of its deposit facility has decreased from EUR 809bn to EUR 324bn. However, according to Rabobank's Christian Lawrence: "This has also almost entirely been netted off by the volume held at bank’s current accounts with their central banks increasing from EUR 73.8bn to EUR 540bn (an increase of EUR 466bn)." Thus with both facilities earning 0%," it appears that banks have simply chosen to hold it on their current account rather than in the deposit facility. It was speculated that one of the ECB’s reasons for decreasing the deposit rate to 0% was to force core banks to lend to peripheral banks and thus re-start the interbank market – to date this does not appear to have happened."

"Yet again the macro data flow is set to be very light in the day ahead. Of what there is due for release, price pressures are in focus with Spanish and Italian CPI data this morning and US PPI data this afternoon. The main event of the day will likely be the Italian auction in the aftermath of Moody’s two notch downgrade last night." He added.