The ECB is expected to keep its key interest rate unchanged at 1.00 percent when it meets on Thursday, featuring a new line-up as Germany's Joerg Asmussen and Frenchman Benoit Coeure start their terms on the bank's Executive Board. The central bank is expected to hold its fire for now to assess the impact of its recent steps to ease money market tension, for example by injecting 489 billion euros in 3-year loans in December, which has since pushed down lending rates. Three-month Euribor rates, traditionally the main gauge of unsecured interbank euro lending and a mix of interest rate expectations and banks' appetite for lending, fell further on Thursday and hit a fresh 9-month low at 1.245 percent compared with 1.257 percent the previous day. Longer-term rates also dropped. Six-month rates eased to 1.527 percent from 1.538 percent, while 12-month rates fell to 1.856 percent from 1.868 percent. One-week rates - most heavily influenced by excess liquidity, which rose to 408 billion euros according to Reuters calculations - fell to 0.497 percent from 0.513 percent. Overnight rates rose to 0.375 percent from 0.371 percent. Despite being awash with liquidity, euro zone banks still opt for safety over profit and prefer to park their excess funds overnight at the ECB rather than lending it to each other, even though the ECB's rate of 0.25 percent is below market rates. Overnight-deposits at the ECB hit a record high at 486 billion euros on Wednesday, but eased on Thursday to 471 billion euros. Whilst clear evidence of the dysfunction in the euro money market, the rise is unsurprising given the recent huge injection of ECB cash. Proportionally there has been little change in the amount banks are hoarding. Around 70 percent of the near-700 billion euros the ECB is currently lending to banks is being redeposited back there, a proportion that has become the norm over the last couple of months. Having gorged themselves on 3-year funding, banks are now rebalancing their finances by trimming their intake of shorter-term ECB loans. On Tuesday, they cut the use of 1-week funding by another 20 billion euros to 111 billion. Euribor rates are fixed daily by the Banking Federation of the European Union (FBE) shortly after 1000 GMT.