The European Central Bank’s financing to Portuguese lenders fell in July from the previous month, the Bank of Portugal said. ECB financing decreased to 56.8 billion euros ($70 billion) from a record 60.5 billion euros in June, the Lisbon-based Bank of Portugal said today on the BPStat portion of its website. Portugal sought a bailout in April 2011, the third euro- area country to do so after Greece and Ireland, and will receive 78 billion euros under the agreement with the International Monetary Fund and the European Union. The plan earmarks as much as 12 billion euros to recapitalize Portugal’s lenders. The Portuguese government announced on June 4 that it has committed to inject more than 6.6 billion euros in Banco Comercial Portugues SA (BCP), Banco BPI SA (BPI) and state-owned Caixa Geral de Depositos SA to recapitalize the lenders. As part of the Portugal’s aid plan, the country’s lenders were required to raise their core Tier 1 capital ratios to 9 percent by the end of 2011 and 10 percent by the end of 2012. To contact the reporters on this story: Joao Lima in Lisbon at jlima1@bloomberg.net; Henrique Almeida in Lisbon at halmeida5@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jerrold Colten at jcolten@bloomberg.net

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