Malta is to lend the IMF €260m from Central Bank reserves as part of a package destined for a bailout of some countries in the eurozone.
The EU, however, is still short of the target of loans it had set itself, with Britain leaving its EU partners in the lurch for the second time this month.
Eurozone chief Jean-Claude Juncker said the 17 countries that share the single currency pledged €150 billion in bilateral loans for the International Monetary Fund late yesterday. Europe hopes the money can help stabilise the debt-laden euro area
But European Union leaders had called at a December 9 summit for €200 billion and Britain's refusal to stump up its roughly 30-billion share.
After mixed messages also from European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi in a high-profile press interview and before a key European Parliament committee, Wall Street ended the day down 0.84 percent in thin trade, with Europe's main markets also down at open today.
"We will not contribute to anything that is only available to eurozone countries," a British government official in London told AFP.
"Nor will we participate in an increase in IMF resources that only comes from EU countries without the participation of other G20 countries" outside the EU, he added.
The IMF currently has less than €300 billion available for lending to countries that enter reform programmes.
Germany will provide €41.5 billion, France €31.4 billion, Italy €23.48 billion, Spain €14.86 billion, the Netherlands €13.86 billion and Belgium €9.99 billion.
Juncker said that Britain would "define its contribution early in the new year in the framework of the G20."
But a senior EU official said finance minister George Osborne's refusal to budge caused "bitterness" among counterparts, on tenterhooks after being put on a downgrade watch by international credit rating agencies.
One of the biggest, Fitch, has already warned that a meaningful solution to the debt crisis may prove "beyond reach" of the EU.
The head of the German central bank said last week that its payout will be conditional on the United States and other major Group of 20 contributors taking a "fair" burden-share.
"If large members, for example the US, were to say 'we're not taking part,' then from our point of view it is problematic," he said.
Russia last week suggested that it could contribute up to $20 billion in loans and investments via the IMF. But China, India and Brazil have yet to go that far.
Like other major economies, the United States needs the eurozone to be a healthy trading partner if worldwide recession in 2012 is to be avoided.
IMF chief Christine Lagarde said the world economy is at "a very dangerous juncture."
The latest sign London is out of synch with broader EU goals came 10 days after Prime Minister David Cameron vetoed an EU treaty change and opted out of a pact to create a new "fiscal union."