The European Central Bank on Thursday stole a march on the International Monetary Fund in extending support to a country in need of credit to cope with the global financial crisis.

While the IMF had earlier indicated it was ready to help Budapest and remains ready to assist, the ECB on Thursday came up with a €5bn ($6.7bn, £3.9bn) credit line, to cover Hungarian banks' acute shortage of euros.

The IMF, for its part, was busy in Ukraine, where the government disclosed it was discussing a special loan to help stabilise the financial markets.

In Budapest, the forint strengthened on news of the ECB's intervention. But the forint's 1.5 per cent rise against the euro reclaimed little of Wednesday's 7 per cent plunge, the biggest daily decline in five years. And shares fell 8.6 per cent, extending Wednesday's steep 11.9 per cent drop.

In Kiev, currency and stock markets fell as Yulia Tymoshenko, prime minister, disclosed the IMF was ready to consider $3bn to $14bn as a special loan to stabilise Ukraine's financial system. The hryvnia closed 3.1 per cent down against the US dollar while the PFTS share index dropped 5.2 per cent, making it almost 80 per cent down on the year.

The market reactions highlighted not only scepticism about the planned interventions but general fears about the impact of the global crisis on emerging markets.

The ECB's move signalled its willingness to extend help beyond the 15-country eurozone to other European Union members when financial stability is threatened. The Frankfurt-based institution has rarely made such loans in the past, and never before have they been made public.

Hungary's central bank announced other measures to breath life into static government bond markets. Orsolya Nyeste, chief treasury economist at Erste Bank in Hungary, said: "The mood has improved because of the measures, but the markets are still digesting what has happened."

Meanwhile, Gordon Baj-nai, economy minister, told the FT a recent revision of the 2009 budget showed the government was already committed to further spending cuts, taking the 2008 budget deficit to 3.4 per cent of gross domestic product. "Our next task is to carry out structural reforms to improve competitiveness. First you need stability - and I'm now relaxed about that - and then we have to go further."

In Kiev, Ms Tymoshenko said IMF officials were nervous about a push by her rival, President Viktor Yushchenko, to hold snap parliamentary elections in December. The IMF, which has a team in Kiev on a one-week visit, denied support was contingent on the election timetable.

By Thomas Escritt in Budapest, Roman Olearchyk in Kiev, Jan Cienski in Warsaw, and Stefan Wagstyl in London