Lending to healthy commercial banks through the Federal Reserve Board's discount window grew by nearly $1.5 billion in the past week, to $8.831 billion on Wednesday.
Overall discount window lending was relatively flat during the week, aggregating $34.508 billion on Wednesday, up nearly 2% from a week earlier.
The San Francisco Fed issued $616 million in loans, and the Chicago Fed, $379 million. The remaining $55 million was originated in the Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, St. Louis, Minneapolis, and Kansas City, Mo., districts.
Loans to investment banks through the primary dealer credit facility fell 3.1%, to $25.655 billion. There were no loans to weak commercial institutions, and the remaining $22 million was sent to institutions in rural or resort regions in the form of seasonal credit.
Most of the loans — $28.151 billion — are to mature in the next 15 days, and another $6.357 billion will come due in 16 to 90 days.
Since the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is taking the lead in providing funds to investment banks, it dominated discount window lending during the week, with loans totaling $31.733 billion. But lending from the Richmond Fed grew dramatically, reaching $1.725 billion on Wednesday. The Richmond Fed had made no loans a week earlier.
Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said Thursday that it had auctioned off $24.999 billion of Treasury securities.
