Euro area lending picks up to fastest rate since 2011
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Lending growth to euro zone companies and households rose at its fastest rate since late 2011 in February, suggesting that the euro area recovery is continuing, in line with expectations, data form the European Central Bank showed on Tuesday.
Lending growth to corporations accelerated to 0.9 percent from 0.6 percent a month earlier, its best rate since December 2011 and extending a modest and uneven recovery that started in 2014.
Household lending growth picked up to 1.6 percent from 1.4 percent, the fastest since November 2011.
The ECB has been buying hundreds of billions of euros worth of assets over the past year, hoping to kick-start lending to drive up growth and inflation. It will even increase monthly purchases to 80 billion euros from 60 billion euros next month.
The annual growth rate of the M3 measure of money circulating in the euro zone, which is often an indicator of future economic activity, was unchanged at 5.0 percent, in line with expectations for an unchanged reading.
Growth in M3, which includes items such as deposits with a longer maturity, holdings in money market funds and some debt securities, peaked at 5.4 percent in April and has been more or less flat-lining since.
(Reporting by Balazs Koranyi; Editing by Francesco Canepa)
