WASHINGTON, USA – The Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, and the Swiss National Bank yesterday announced a coordinated action to enhance the provision of liquidity via the standing US dollar liquidity swap line arrangements.
These central banks have agreed to lower the pricing on the standing US dollar liquidity swap arrangements by 25 basis points so that the new rate will be the US dollar overnight index swap (OIS) rate plus 25 basis points.
To increase the swap lines’ effectiveness in providing term liquidity, the foreign central banks with regular US dollar liquidity operations have also agreed to begin offering US dollars weekly in each jurisdiction with an 84-day maturity, in addition to the 1-week maturity operations currently offered. These changes will take effect with the next scheduled operations during the week of March 16. The new pricing and maturity offerings will remain in place as long as appropriate to support the smooth functioning of US dollar funding markets.
The swap lines are available standing facilities and serve as an important liquidity backstop to ease strains in global funding markets, thereby helping to mitigate the effects of such strains on the supply of credit to households and businesses, both domestically and abroad.