Euro dips on latest Athens impasse The euro fell on Friday, ending a strong week on a sour note, after hopes faded that a resolution to the Greek bail out talks had been achieved. On Thursday, the euro had rallied after it was announced by the Greek prime minister's office that the country would meet the fiscal targets required for its second round of bail-out cash of €130bn to avoid a disorderly default. Late on Thursday night, however, European finance chiefs deferred ratifying the rescue package until Athens could show it would put austerity measures into action. "The refusal by [eurozone leaders] to sign off the bail-out deal leaves us in limbo over the weekend, which may encourage a further reduction of risk, so we could see some further modest declines in euro/dollar," said Derek Halpenny at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ. The euro fell 0.3 per cent against the dollar to $1.3249 on Friday, but remained 0.9 per cent higher over the week, and was down 0.1 per cent to Y103.03 versus the yen, leaving it 2.4 per cent higher over the week. The single currency fell 0.4 per cent to £0.8367 against a broadly stronger pound, which was performing well in spite of the Bank of England's announcement on Thursday that it was to inject a further £50bn into the UK economy via its asset purchase programme. Although recent purchasing manager surveys have showed economic activity may be picking up, the Bank remained cautious, taking its total spend on quantitative easing (QE) up to £325bn. "The UK has won the battle of competitive devaluation and this round of QE continues to suppress the pound while inflating away the UK's gargantuan debt," said Clem Chambers, chief executive of financial website ADVFN.com. The pound was up 0.1 per cent against the dollar to $1.5834 on Friday, and over the week the pound was indeed suppressed, up just 0.1 per cent. Against the euro, it was down 0.7 per cent over the week. Aside from the central bank meetings this week in Europe and the UK, the Reserve Bank of Australia was in action on Tuesday and was expected to deliver a quarter point rate cut to 4 per cent. However, it elected to leave its main rate at 4.25 per cent, providing a boost on the day for the Australian dollar. Over the week, however, the currency fell 0.9 per cent to $1.0680 against its US namesake, undermined by weaker January export data.