A round-up of today's other business stories in brief.

Banks borrow most in seven years

Banks borrowed the most in more than seven years from the European Central Bank at its emergency rate.

Financial institutions borrowed €24.6 billion ($33.9 billion) on October 3rd at the central banks marginal lending rate of 5.25 per cent, which is one percentage point above its benchmark rate for regular auctions.

Thats the most since February 2001. At the same time, banks deposited €38.9 billion with the ECB, the Frankfurt-based central bank said in a statement this morning.

The deposit rate is 3.25 per cent.

Commercial banks are refusing to lend to each other after the US housing slump caused the collapse of New York-based Lehman Brothers and forced governments to bail out banks in the US and Europe.

Central banks including the Federal Reserve and the ECB are injecting billions into global money markets in an effort to keep them functioning.

As some market players are flooded with cash after the ECBs continued liquidity injections, the ECB also offered to drain €220 billion from money markets at a fixed rate of 4.25 per cent. This is the fourth drain since banks deposits with the ECB jumped to a record €102.8 billion on September 30th. - (Bloomberg)

EasyJet reports 20% rise in volumes

British airline easyJet reported a 20 per cent rise in September passenger volumes, but shares fell across the sector amid growing concerns about the economy.

The company also said in a statement today its load factor - a measure of how well it fills planes - improved versus a year earlier to 86.9 per cent, while year-to-date passenger growth was up 17.3 per cent.

The performance echoed an equally positive result from Ryanair, which said on Friday its September passenger numbers grew by up to 20 per cent.

However, both airlines have warned of slowing consumer demand over the winter months.

Shares in British Airways were hit hardest after its traffic numbers showed on Friday that more expensive flying is suffering most, with premium class travel down 8.6 percent in September and passenger numbers down 4.8 per cent overall.

The outlook is uncertain - consumer weakness is going to be a factor for some time, said Douglas McNeill, transport analyst at Blue Oar.

EasyJet shares were down 3.3 per cent at 315 pence by 9.30am, valuing it at €1.3 billion ($2.3 billion).

The shares are down by around 46 per cent for the year so far as airlines battle the twin threat of rising fuel costs and impending recession.

British Airways was off 8.5 per cent at 150 pence, valuing Britains flagship carrier at €1.7 billion, while Ryanair was down about 6 per cent.

Collins Stewart analyst Andrew Fitchie said in a note that BA and the budget airlines were operating opposite models - with the former pushing up prices at the expense of volume and the latter keeping fares low - helping to explain the sharp contrast in September performance.

SAP warns on abrupt fall in sales

German software maker SAP AG warned that its sales had abruptly dropped off in the last two weeks of September as companies cut back on computer-related spending due to the widening financial crisis.

The announcement drove SAP shares down 16 percent, their biggest drop in nearly 12 years, and pulled down the whole technology sector as investors feared that other computer industry companies also faced a drop in business. Shares of SAP rival Oracle Corp 7.6 percent, while the Nasdaq fell 5 percent.

SAP is the worlds biggest maker of software that large and mid-sized companies use to manage their businesses.

Backing for Alitalia- Lufthansa deal

German and Italian leaders backed a potential agreement on Monday between Alitalia and Lufthansa on the German airline taking a minority stake in the Italian carrier.

CAI, the group that has offered to rescue Alitalia, has said it will choose a foreign partner for the airline in the coming weeks. Air France-KLM and Lufthansa are expected to battle it out for a stake, with the German carrier seen edging out its French rival.

We have said that we are open to international alliances and it would please us greatly if this alliance was with a country that we have worked with a lot, namely Germany, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said. - (Reuters)