Eurozone corporate lending picks up

— Corproate lending in the eurozone, a key gauge for measuring the health of economic recovery, accelerated slightly in April to hit a near eight-year high, ECB data showed on Monday.

Growth in loans to non-financial corporations picked up to 2.4 percent in April from 2.3 percent in March, its highest level since June 2009, the European Central Bank calculated in regular monthly data.

The ECB closely monitors lending in the 19 countries that share the euro because it believes that businesses are more likely to spend, hire and invest if cash is more readily available, powering the economy towards recovery and inflation towards the central bank’s target of just below 2.0 percent.

Credit almost dried up completely during the financial crisis and so the ECB took a number of measures to kickstart lending: cutting interest rates to historic lows, offering low-interest loans to banks, and pumping more than 1.8 trillion euros so far into the financial system through bond-buying.