The Bank receives no aid, subsidy or budgetary contribution from its member states to finance its activities. The necessary resources are therefore raised on the international capital markets in the form of borrowings.

For its borrowing activity, the Bank has been rated by Moody's since 1988, by Standard & Poor's since 1989 and by Fitch Ratings since 1996. It enjoys the maximum AAA rating with all three agencies on its principal long-term debt and AAA/Prime 1 (Moody's) / A-1+ (Standard and Poor's) on its short-term debt.

To ensure that it maintains access to the funds needed to pursue its activities, the Bank continues to have recourse both to large-scale borrowings in major currencies, aimed at a broad range of institutional investors, and to issues in given currencies or with specific structures corresponding to more particular requirements.

The CEB currently uses three bond issue programmes; the Euro Medium Term Note Programme, the AUD Medium Term Note Programme and the Euro Commercial Paper Programme.




In 2007, the Bank borrowed a total amount of € 2.9 billion, broken down into 12 funding operationswith maturities of 1 year or more. This amount, which is significantly higher than the funding volume in 2006 (€ 2.1 billion) fulfilled two main objectives: to cover lending needs and to meet the Bank's repayment of maturing debt, which in 2007 was appreciably higher than in 2006.

86.7% of funds raised in 2007 came from the American dollar market, compared with 76% in 2006. The remaining 13.3% were denominated in the Australian dollar (12.9%) and Japanese yen (0.4%).