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Italy's Pop Sondrio repays early 500 million euros of crisis loans

MILAN (Reuters) - Italy's Banca Popolare di Sondrio said on Wednesday it had paid back 500 million euros (410 million pounds) in crisis loans received from the European Central Bank ahead of time. In a statement the regional lender said reimbursement of the loans, maturing on February 26 next year, had been completed on Wednesday due to its improved liquidity situation. Italian banks took a total of 255 billion euros in ECB three-year loans. Many have begun to pay them back early as funding conditions improve. Last week Banca Popolare di Milano said it would pay 750 million euros of its crisis loans, or LTROs, by the end of April. The ECB lent banks more than one trillion euros in three-year LTROs during the euro zone's debt crisis, in December 2011 and February 2012, to help lenders ride out funding constraints. "The impact of the reimbursement on the bank's operations is deemed to be modest," Popolare di Sondrio said. The lender is one of 15 Italian banks under review by the ECB as part of a check-up of banking assets across the euro zone this year. (Reporting by Stephen Jewkes, editing by Louise Heavens)