The Federal Reserve and the world's top central banks offered to...

The Federal Reserve and the world's top central banks offered to pump billions of dollars into global money markets on Thursday in a coordinated effort to ease a funding squeeze triggered by the upheaval on Wall Street.

The European Central Bank said it joined forces with the Fed and central banks of Canada, Switzerland, Japan and Britain to boost liquidity in global financial markets.


The ECB and the Bank of England said they would each offer up to $40 billion in overnight funds.

The Fed said it would authorize $180 billion expansion of temporary foreign currency swap arrangements and Bank of Japan announced it would launch dollar-supply operations as part of the worldwide effort to tackle the dollar shortage.

"The central banks continue to work together closely and will take appropriate steps to address the ongoing pressures," the ECB said in a statement.

The concerted action follows a rout in financial markets, roiled by fears of more Wall Steet failures after a week that saw Lehman Brothers [LEH 0.13 -0.17 (-56.67%) ] file for bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch [MER 19.36 -2.82 (-12.71%) ] lose its independence and a $85 billion U.S. government bailout of insurer AIG [AIG 2.05 -1.70 (-45.33%) ].

Overnight U.S. dollar funding costs fell to 2 percent after the central bank action, compared with around 5 percent the previous day in Europe and as high as 8.5 percent in Asian trading on Thursday.

"Obviously it does not tackle the underlying root causes of the problem, but it does help to release some of those immediate tensions that have been building up in the money market," Ian Stannard, senior currency strategist at BNP Paribas.

Earlier on Thursday central banks in Japan, Australia and India pumped a further $28 billion into money markets while China relaxed its policy for the second time this week.

South Korea sold dollars in the swap market and said it would try to halt the slide in bond prices, the Philippines intervened to support the peso, and Taiwan warned it could use a state fund to prop up stocks as markets whipsawed across the region facing it toughest test since the Asian financial crisis of 1997.

Overnight, news emerged of takeovers involving No. 2 U.S. investment bank Morgan Stanley [MS 21.75 -6.95 (-24.22%) ], top U.S. savings and loan Washington Mutual [WM 2.01 -0.31 (-13.36%) ] and major UK mortgage lender HBOS, reflecting the seismic change in the global financial landscape.

Well-oiled money markets where banks lend short term funds to each other to smooth out daily swings in their balances are crucial for the proper functioning of the financial system and the economy at large.

Banks around the world have responded to the squeeze, exacerbated by investors' flight into safe havens of gold and government bonds, by flooding markets with cash and verbal reassurances, but with only limited success.
Copyright 2008 Reuters. Click for restrictions.


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