Macquarie Securities has upgraded its recommendation on Bendigo and Adelaide Bank to Outperform, arguing that the bank is well placed to gain a funding cost benefit from the European Central Bank's move to "negative" interest rates.The majors have a significant funding advantage, given that the regional banks pay more for funding and have smaller distribution footprints for collecting deposits.In a note on the downward trend in funding costs, Macquarie said: "We believe the potential move by the ECB to install 'negative' interest rates is likely to see a strong bid for assets with reasonable yields, which would include Australian banks' offshore wholesale funding and securitised assets."Ten per cent of Bendigo and Adelaide's funding comes from securitisation and 11 per cent from wholesale markets.All banks that are active in the offshore capital markets would benefit from any improvement in pricing but Macquarie said Bendigo and Adelaide Bank had a couple of other things going for it: it is a "value pick" because it is trading at a discount to the majors and to Bank of Queensland; and it will benefit from its acquisition of Rural Finance, which is due to be finalised next month.Bendigo and Adelaide acquired Rural Finance's assets for 1.5 times price-to-book and a prospective price-to-earnings ratio of 8.5 times. This is a very rational price, given recent transactions have range from 1.2 times book for Westpac's acquisition of Lloyds and 1.9 times book for Bank of Queensland's acquisition of Investec's portfolio.The acquired rural banking portfolio nicely complements Bendigo and Adelaide's existing business and is expected to be EPS and ROE accretive in 2014/15.