Measures designed to address elevated pressures in the short-term US dollar funding markets

Today, the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the European Central Bank (ECB), the Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan and the Swiss National Bank are announcing co-ordinated measures designed to address the continued elevated pressures in short-term US dollar funding markets. These measures, together with other actions taken in the last few days by individual central banks, are designed to improve the liquidity conditions in global financial markets. The central banks continue to work together closely and will take appropriate steps to address the ongoing pressures.

The Governing Council of the ECB has decided to reinforce its joint action with the Federal Reserve by adding an overnight maturity to its operations providing US dollar funding to Eurosystem counterparties and by increasing the amounts offered in the Term Auction Facility operations.

As regards the overnight US dollar funding, the Eurosystem shall conduct US dollar liquidity-providing operations with its counterparties against Eurosystem-eligible collateral, applying a variable rate tender procedure. It is intended to continue the provision of US dollar liquidity for as long as needed in view of the prevailing market conditions. The US dollars will be provided by the Federal Reserve to the ECB, up to USD 40 billion by means of a temporary reciprocal currency arrangement (swap line). The operational details can be obtained from the ECB's website (www.ecb.europa.eu).

As regards the Term Auction Facility operations, the Governing Council of the ECB has decided, in conjunction with the Federal Reserve, to increase the amount of US dollar liquidity provided to the counterparties of the Eurosystem to USD 25 billion for the 28-days maturity operations, and to USD 15 billion for the 84-days maturity operations.

Overall, the dollar funding operations conducted by the Eurosystem could reach an outstanding amount of USD 110 billion, compared to the current USD 50 billion.

Information on the actions that will be taken by other central banks is available at the following websites:

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

Bank of Canada: http://www.bank-banque-canada.ca

Bank of England: http://www.bankofengland.co.uk

Bank of Japan: http://www.boj.or.jp

Swiss National Bank: http://www.snb.ch