The heads of Banco Espirito Santo, Millennium bcp and Banco BPI met with the governor of the Bank of Portugal on Monday to pass on their views, Jornal said.

Nobody at the central bank was immediately available to comment on the report.

But Carlos Santos Ferreira, head of Millennium bcp, Portugal’s biggest private bank, said in a television interview late Monday that it was “indispensable that the country seeks a short-term loan.”

A spokesman from the bank would not comment on whether the bank had decided not to buy further government debt.

A short-term loan has been mooted by Portugal’s opposition Social Democrats as a solution to growing financial uncertainty caused by the resignation of the government after parliament rejected its latest austerity measures.

The party’s leader, Pedro Passos Coelho, suggested such a move in a Reuters interview last month.

Such a loan, from the International Monetary Fund or European Union, could sooth concerns around two big bond redemptions the country faces in April and June.

It would be separate to any eventual bailout, which economists say is virtually inevitable.

Moody’s cut Portugal’s sovereign debt by one notch on Tuesday, saying it believed an incoming government would need to seek financing support from the European Union as a matter of urgency.

The euro slipped from a five-month high versus the dollar, knocked by the Moody’s downgrade. The cost of insuring Portuguese debt against default rose and 10-year Portuguese bond yields headed toward nine percent.

“The government’s current cost of funding is nearing a level that is unsustainable, even in the short-term,” Moody’s said in a statement.

Lisbon will auction up to one billion euros of of 6- and 12-month Treasury bills on Wednesday.

Jornal de Negocios ran a separate column on Tuesday titled “Game over, we have lost, Mr.Engineer,” referring to Prime Minister Jose Socrates who has insisted the country needs no outside help.

Socrates vowed on Monday to keep resisting a foreign financial rescue for the debt-laden country, including the short-term loan suggested by the opposition.

Asked if a loan from the IMF was possible if the country faced immediate financing problems, Socrates told RTP television: “I don’t know of any IMF financing line that would not enforce a program with conditions.

“All programs that have been negotiated so far were very severe in terms of measures demanded from a country,” he said.

A euro zone source told Reuters on Monday that finance ministers will discuss on Friday Portugal’s options to solve its debt problems under an interim government, including whether it is capable of requesting EU financial aid.

Concerns over Portugal’s ability to finance itself have spiralled as the caretaker Socialist government, which is in place until elections on June 5, has said it does not have the power to request a bailout.