Euribor rates continue on upward path

FRANKFURT, June 17 (Reuters) - Key euro-priced bank-to-bank lending rates continued to rise steadily on Thursday, as the European debt crisis continued to hit confidence and money markets prepared for a 442 billion euro payback deadline.

The three-month Euribor rate -- traditionally the main gauge of interbank euro lending and a mix of interest rate expectations and banks' appetite for lending -- rose to 0.729 percent from 0.727 percent the previous day, the highest level since late October.

Six-month rates edged up to 1.011 percent from 1.008 percent, having broken through the ECB's benchmark interest rate level of 1.0 percent last Thursday for the first time since last November.

One-year rates hit 1.281 percent, a nine-month high, up from 1.278 percent, while shorter-term one-week rates bucked the trend, easing back to 0.364 percent from 0.365 percent.

The debt troubles hitting Greece and other financially strained euro zone countries, have reignited fears about the region's banks and forced the European Central Bank to reintroduce extra lending operations and abandon a long-held resistance to buying government bonds. [ID:nSGE65A02M]

Markets are also bracing themselves for July 1, when banks have to pay back 442 billion euros worth of one-year loans borrowed from the ECB last year, although they will have the option of switching to shorter-term loans.

Euribor rates are fixed daily by the Banking Federation of the European Union (FBE) shortly after 0900 GMT.

* For a table of the latest Euribor fixings for terms of one week to one year, double click on

* For a table of the previous day's fixings of EONIA swap rates, which show market expectations for future overnight lending rates, double click on

* For graphs of historic Euribor and EONIA swap rates, right click on the links in angle brackets below, and select 'Related Graph' 1 week 2 week 3 week 1 month 2 month 3 month 4 month 5 month 6 month 7 month 8 month 9 month 10 month 11 month 1 year (Reporting by Frankfurt newsroom)