Monterrey— During the week that ended on March 22, banks in the US requested a record amount of discount window loans from the Federal Reserve (Fed): 116 thousand 987 million dollars on average each night.
The previous record corresponded to the week that ended on October 29, 2008, and was 111 thousand 946 million on average, a month and a half after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers that “officially” marked the beginning of the global financial crisis that extended until 2009.
The reason for the banks to take these credits, from 1 to 90 days, prepayable and renewable, is to have sufficient liquidity.
The Fed explains it this way: “It’s late afternoon and Flanders Community Bank has little cash on hand to hold in reserve. It has a lot of assets, such as loans it has made to customers for cars, homes or education, however , you must have the required cash in case your customers go to the bank to make withdrawals the next day.”
Banks’ fears of facing a wave of withdrawals stem from the recent bankruptcies of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.
Analysts explain that, traditionally, banks avoid taking loans from the discount window to the Fed for fear that they will be frowned upon on their finances, but this is not the case now, with the runs that are already being registered in several countries.
