March 19 (Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. said they've borrowed from a program created by the Federal Reserve to jumpstart lending amid concern that Wall Street faced a cash shortage.

``We have tested the window because we want to remove the stigma from the window,'' Morgan Stanley Chief Financial Officer Colm Kelleher said in an interview today, referring to the Fed lending program. ``It's meant to be there for normal business. It's not meant to be there as a last-recourse thing.''

Goldman spokesman Michael DuVally said his firm is also ``testing'' the Fed facility, started March 17, and will use it ``if doing so makes sense from an economic and funding diversification point of view.'' Lehman Chief Financial Officer Erin Callan said the company used the window last night.

``We wanted to show some leadership,'' Callan said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. Wall Street firms were reluctant to turn to the Fed earlier this week because of concern that it might make them appear financially weak, the Wall Street Journal reported today.

The Fed started the lending program for brokers, which is similar to the so-called discount window used by commercial banks, after a run on Bear Stearns Cos. last week pushed the fifth-largest securities firm to the brink of collapse.

The central bank's new Primary Dealer Credit Facility allows Wall Street banks to borrow money overnight at a 2.5 percent interest rate. In its first weekend emergency action in almost three decades, the Fed lowered the so-called discount rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 3.25 percent, and then lowered it again yesterday. The Fed also agreed to provide as much as $30 billion to JPMorgan Chase & Co. to help finance the bank's takeover of Bear Stearns.

Under the Fed's existing discount window for commercial banks, loans are available for as long as 90 days; the Fed extended the terms from 30 days in a March 16 decision and from overnight in August.

To contact the reporter on this story: Yalman Onaran in New York at yonaran@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: March 19, 2008 12:30 EDT