PARIS (MNI) - French banks should do well in the stress tests to be applied in Europe, Bank of France Governor Christian Noyer said Tuesday.

"Stress tests are not finished yet, therefore it is too soon to talk about them," Noyer told reporters after a speech to a Europlace conference.

But, "I see no reason that the results for French banks would be different from those stress tests that we apply regularly in France and which have always been successful," he said.

FRANKFURT (MNI) - The European Central Bank on Tuesday called for bids in a one-week liquidity absorbing operation designed to sterilize the money that the bank had injected into the financial system through its purchases of bonds on the secondary market.

The operation is in the form of a variable-rate tender with a maximum bid rate of 1.00%, the bank said. It intends to mop up E59.0 billion in liquidity, corresponding to the amount of purchases under the Securities Market Programme that was settled at or before Friday, July 2.

FRANKFURT (MNI) - The European Central Bank on Tuesday allotted E229.0703 billion in its main seven-day refinancing operation at a fixed rate of 1.0%.

The ECB satisfied all of the 151 bids received.

Today's operation resulted in a net addition of E66.1583 billion after the ECB allotted E162.912 billion in its 7-day MRO last week.

FRANKFURT (MNI) - The German federal government called for bids Tuesday on its E5 billion top-up of the 3.00%-coupon July 2020, 10-year bund, the Bundesbank announced Tuesday.

Bids for the top-up are due by 09:00 GMT Wednesday, July 7, with results of the allocation to be announced shortly thereafter. The top-up tranche will settle on Friday, July 9.

Given the E17 billion of the 10-year bond already issued, the top-up will bring total volume outstanding to E22 billion for the security, which matures on July 4, 2020 and is strippable.

FRANKFURT (MNI) - The European Central Bank said Tuesday that a total of E61.113 billion Eurosystem covered bond purchases had settled as of July 5.

As of July 4, settled acquisitions had totaled E61.083 billion, the ECB said Monday.

The program is aimed at revitalizing a market segment that has been exceptionally hard hit by the financial turmoil.

FRANKFURT (MNI) - Greece is now the second riskiest sovereign borrower in the world, according to a recent analysis by the data provider CMA, the Financial Times reported Tuesday.

Over the past three months, Greece has moved from ninth to second most likely to default within the next five years, a study of credit default swap (CDS) markets show.

BRUSSELS (MNI) - The European Union must dispel concerns about the fragility of its banking system and deliver on all its initiatives to improve governance and regulation if investor confidence in the bloc is to be restored, European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Olli Rehn said on Monday.

BRUSSELS (MNI) - The European Union must dispel concerns about the fragility of its banking system and deliver on all its initiatives to improve governance and regulation if investor confidence in the bloc is to be restored, European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Olli Rehn said on Monday.