Frankfurt - The European Central Bank (ECB) agreed a modest increase in emergency funding for Greek banks on Wednesday, putting pressure on Athens to strike a financing deal with its European partners before its lenders run out of money.
The ECB Governing Council, meeting in Frankfurt, agreed to raise the provision of Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) to €68.3bn, a person familiar with the ECB talks said.
The ECB had already raised the ELA available to Greek banks by €5bn to about €65b on last Thursday. With Wednesday's limited raise, the ECB is keeping Greece's banks - and thereby the Athens government - on a tight leash.