By Nathan Gill

     Dec. 2 (Bloomberg) — Chile’s central bank sold $160 million in dollar swaps to banks, part of a six-month, $5 billion program.

     Banks were awarded the swaps at an average rate of 1.06 percentage points above Libor, the London interbank offered rate, the central bank wrote on its Web site. Six-month Libor is 2.57 percent. It put $500 million of swaps up for auction today.

     The central bank will allow banks to access dollars for as long as 182 days. It is also offering pesos through repo operations, and will accept bank deposits as collateral.