Banks borrow more from Fed; Wall Street takes pass

WASHINGTON — Banks borrowed more over the past week from the Federal Reserve's emergency lending program, while Wall Street firms took a pass for the fifth week in a row.

A Fed report released Thursday said commercial banks averaged $18.98 billion in daily borrowing over the past week. That compared with a daily average of $18.47 billion in the previous week.

For the week ending Sept. 3, Wall Street firms didn't take out any loans, the fifth straight period of no action. Their borrowing, however, averaged as high as $38.1 billion a day over the course of a week in early April.

Investment houses in March were given similar loan privileges as commercial banks after a run on Bear Stearns pushed what was the nation's fifth-largest investment bank to the brink of bankruptcy. The situation raised fears that other Wall Street firms might be in jeopardy.

Bear Stearns was eventually taken over by JPMorgan Chase & Co. in a deal that involved the Fed's financial backing.

The identities of commercial banks and investment houses that borrow are not released. Commercial banks and investment companies now pay 2.25 percent in interest for the loans.

In the broadest use of the central bank's lending power since the 1930s, the Fed in March scrambled to avert a market meltdown by giving investment houses a place to go for emergency overnight loans. The Fed has since extended those loan privileges into next year. Originally they were supposed to last through mid-September.

More recently, the Fed has said troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could draw emergency loans from the central bank if they needed. There was no indication in the weekly report that they had done so.

Separately, as part of efforts to relieve credit strains, the Fed auctioned nearly $25 billion in Treasury securities to investment companies Thursday. The Fed received requests for $45 billion worth of the securities.

In exchange for the 28-day loans of Treasury securities, bidding companies can put up as collateral more risky investments. These include certain mortgage-backed securities and bonds secured by federally guaranteed student loans.

The auction program, which began March 27, is intended to make investment companies more inclined to lend to each other. A second goal is providing relief to the distressed market for mortgage-linked securities and for student loans.

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On the Net:

Federal Reserve: http://www.federalreserve.gov/

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