Today is the first opportunity for banks to make early payments on the three-year loans issued by the European Central Bank (ECB) last year.

The ECB issued these loans, known as Long-Term Refinancing Operations (LTROs), in two rounds back in December 2011 and March 2012 in order to provide cheap liquidity to the Eurozone financial sector.

It was revealed last week that 278 European financial institutions had communicated that they planned on pre-paying a portion of the LTROs.

According to the ECB, European banks plan on repaying €137.2bn (£117bn) of the more than €1tn in financial assistance before its due date.

Specifically, Spanish newspaper El País reported last night that Spanish banks would be returning €44bn, more than a third of the total amount of the prepayment expected.

JM

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