Dollar bank-to-bank lending rates dipped for a third session in Asia on Thursday while spreads between interbank and policy rate expectations stayed wide enough to reveal a growing fear of a deep and ugly global recession.

Three-month dollar funding costs, SIBOR <SIUSDD=ABSG>, retreated to 2.1718 percent, having dipped steadily from 2.2757 percent on Monday, and in line with the gradual drop in Libor LIBOR.

Yet, even as massive cash and capital injections by global central banks encouraged the drop in money market funding costs, the sense of gloom over economic growth and business profits was getting deeper and weighing on other credit spreads.

The Federal Reserve slashed its U.S. growth forecasts while data showed U.S. consumer prices fell at a record pace last month and Japan's October exports fell by the most in seven years.

U.S. stocks .DJI fell to their lowest in 5-½ years while the risks grew of one or more U.S. automakers being forced into bankruptcy.

While dollar inter-bank rates have eased, the spread between 3-month dollar Libor and market expectations of official interest rates, measured by overnight indexed swaps, has stayed between 161 and 176 basis points for a week, after narrowing since late October.