FHLB Issues $304 Billion in a Week as Banks Boost Liquidity
- System is known as a lender of next-to-last resort for banks
- Figure is almost double the amount banks tapped from Fed
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The Federal Home Loan Bank System issued $304 billion in debt last week, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing non-public data. That’s almost double the $165 billion that liquidity-hungry lenders tapped from the Federal Reserve.
The FHLBs are a Depression-era backstop originally created to boost mortgage lending. The system is known as the “lender of next-to-last resort” — a play on the nickname for the Federal Reserve’s discount window.