The ECB said 78 banks subscribed to the operation, conducted as €442 billion in credit granted a year ago to support banks during the financial crisis expired.
That came after the central bank said Wednesday it would lend a lower-than-expected €131.9 billion to banks for three months. Neither the banks nor their nationalities were identified.
The outcome of the longer-term auction suggested that banks' cash needs are easing despite lingering worries about the impact of the eurozone debt crisis. More than 1,100 banks subscribed to last June's unusual 12-month operation.
The euro, which had dipped after gaining on Wednesday's news, climbed again and traded as high as $1.2343 on a day that also saw Spain raise €3.5 billion in an oversubscribed bond sale.
The total amount of liquidity sought by investors Wednesday and Thursday was in line with initial expectations, but the breakdown between the three-month and short-term operations was unexpected, said Luca Cazzulani, an analyst with UniCredit in Milan.
The outcome left excess liquidity at a level "neither too high, which would have sent worrying signals on the health of European banks, nor too small, which would have put tremendous pressure on money market rates," he said.
Some of the banks bidding for shorter-term loans likely have difficult access to funding but expect an improvement in the coming three months, unlike the banks which bid Wednesday, he wrote in a research note.
Those could halt or reduce their bids in future if the situation improves.
Other bids may have come from banks that took loans a year ago "with speculative intent and have chosen to keep their trades open," he added.
