In the U.K., Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc borrowed 5 billion pounds ($7.9 billion) in the December auction, a person familiar with the matter said, while HSBC Holdings Plc took an undisclosed sum, said a person at the bank. Spokesmen at the companies declined to comment.

Societe Generale SA, BNP Paribas SA and Credit Agricole SA, France's three largest banks, also participated for an undisclosed amount, according to a Morgan Stanley note published Jan. 18 based on conversations with the lenders. Spokesmen at the banks declined to comment.

Ackermann told analysts on Feb. 2 that Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank may consider participating in the next round of ECB loans if it is “very attractive from an economic point of view.” The German lender has impressed customers by not requiring direct government aid during the financial crisis, Ackermann said.

“The fact that we have never taken any money from the government has made us from a reputational point of view so attractive to so many clients in the world that we would be very reluctant to give that up,” said Ackermann, 64.

Deutsche Bank's decision to avoid the loans follows the disclosure of its borrowings from the U.S. Federal Reserve's emergency-loan program during the credit crunch in 2008.

“We learned our lesson during the Fed activity, where we were encouraged to borrow money from the Fed on a confidential level and later on the list was disclosed, and we heard that we had to accept help from the government,” Ackermann said. “We just don't want to do that, and that's why we have not participated.”

Eoin Treacy's view It has made little difference to the shares of European banks whether they participated in various support programs or not. They all experienced steep declines and have been slow to recover. The pressure on their respective balance sheets resulting from the blowout in peripheral sovereign bond spreads has impacted the entire European banking sector. Whether a bank accepts loans from the ECB is an academic point when they all benefit from a tightening of spreads. Accepting the ECB's loans however may help flatter earnings.

One has to hope that this attempt at differentiation, at a critical time for the sector, is not vainglorious behaviour. The ECB is doing everything it can to support the European financial sector by lowering collateral requirements and making abundant liquidity available through its loan facility. There is no argument that the Eurozone's financial sector is in need of recapitalisation and the central bank is doing the needful to help it survive. Let's hope banks do their part.

The Dow Jones Euro Stoxx Banks Index stabilised near 100 between September and January. It has been rallying for five consecutive weeks and is somewhat overbought in the very short term. The Index is now testing the 200-day MA and will need to sustain a move above the trend mean to indicate a return to medium-term demand dominance.