ROME/MILAN (Reuters) - The European Central Bank is monitoring the liquidity position of the euro zone banks under its supervision on a daily basis, Italian bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MI:BMPS) and two other Italian banking sources said on Friday.
A report in Italian daily Il Messaggero said on Friday the ECB had tightened checks on liquidity for the 130 banks under its remit since it took over single supervision of the banking sector on Nov. 4.
It said this was due to the fact that "four or five" among the banks that failed Europe-wide stress tests of lenders had apparently faced "more than a few" requests for deposit withdrawals. It said the requests were made in the first few days of this week.
The ECB declined to comment on the report.
A spokesman at Monte dei Paschi di Siena, which faces a 2.1 billion euros (1.65 billion British pounds) capital shortfall after failing the ECB tests, said the ECB was carrying out daily checks at European banks. He said liquidity flows at the Tuscan lender were "normal".
A source at Genoa-based Banca Carige, which also failed the tests, said it had not received any "abnormal" request from customers to withdraw deposits.
A third banking source confirmed the daily checks by the ECB, saying that in the past Italian banks had been subject to less frequent checks by the Bank of Italy.
(1 US dollar = 0.8065 euro)
(Reporting by Francesca Landini, Stefano Bernabei and Paola Arosio)