The Federal Reserve extended most of its emergency lending programs by three months, through the remainder of 2020, to help an economy still struggling with the coronavirus pandemic.
“The three-month extension will facilitate planning by potential facility participants and provide certainty that the facilities will continue to be available to help the economy recover from the Covid-19 pandemic,” the Fed said in a statement Tuesday.
Since mid-March, the Fed has opened nine emergency programs aimed at pumping liquidity into short-term credit markets and extending credit to businesses and local governments hit hard by the economic fallout from the virus.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a separate statement that he had approved the three month extensions.
The dollar held steady and Treasury yields and U.S. stocks largely maintained their declines after the news.
The facilities have the potential to deploy trillions of dollars, but so far have only about $100 billion in loans outstanding, partly because traditional lenders have returned to short-term markets, making Fed liquidity unnecessary.
The extension applies to seven programs; the Municipal Liquidity Facility was already set to expire on Dec. 31, and the Commercial Paper Funding Facility was set to expire on March 17, 2021.
--With assistance from Saleha Mohsin and Benjamin Purvis.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.