FRANKFURT (AFX) - Euro area M3 grew 7.4 pct year-on-year in October, up from a year-on-year growth rate of 6.9 pct in September. The three month moving average of M3 year-on-year growth rates was 6.8 pct in the August-October period compared with 6.2 pct in July-September. The ECB said the rise in M3 in October reflects financial market uncertainty after the Sept 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. For the first time, the figures are fully adjusted, excluding non-resident holdings of money market paper and debt securities with a maturity of up to two years, as well as non-resident holdings of money market fund shares and units. The ECB excluded non-resident holdings of money market fund shares and units with effect from the May M3 data, but it has not been able to adjust the data for non-resident holdings of money market paper and short-term debt securities until now. The ECB said the exclusion of non-resident holdings of money market paper and short-term debt securities reduced M3 growth by 0.6 percentage points in October and by 0.7 points in September. It had previously estimated that these holdings had distorted M3 growth by around 0.75 percentage points. "With their exclusion, the measurement of M3 has been brought significantly closer to the conceptual definition of this aggregate, which includes only monetary holdings of euro area residents," it said. The figures are also adjusted for seasonal and end-of-month calendar effects.