Bank borrowing from Fed rises slightly to $97.6 billion as financial stress lingers

The Fed has always made credit available to banks in trouble through its rarely used discount window. It also created an emergency lending program in March after the failure of several regional banks put fresh stress on the U.S. financial system.

Bank loans from the emergency Bank Term Funding Program totaled $93.6 billion, up from $91.9 billion in the prior week. The aim of the program is enable banks to withstand panicky customer withdrawals and restore confidence in the financial system.

Borrowing from the discount window, meanwhile, slipped to $3.97 billion from $4.2 billion in the prior week.

Total borrowing from the Fed peaked at $164.8 billion in mid-March. The level of borrowing was a meager $15 billion before the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and several other institutions.

Credit temporarily allocated by the Fed to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to dispose of failed-bank assets declined again to $188 billion from $192.6 billion in the prior week.

Eventually, all of that money will be returned to the Fed once distressed assets are sold and fees from other financial institutions are collected, government officials have said. The FDIC is the banking industry’s main regulatory watchdog.