UK To Provide Liquidity To US?

Just made headlines: Bank of England announces swap arrangement to provide liquidity to US Federal Reserve.

We agree - the US will need all the liquidity it can get.

Update: as is usually the case, Headline writers always invert the facts: turns out these are reciprocal swaps with 5 central banks that would provide foreign currencies to U.S. financial institutions for a total amount of roughly $180 billion. Hmm - is the world running out of non-dollars?

Here is the full press release from the Fed.

The Federal Open Market Committee has authorized new temporary reciprocal currency arrangements (foreign currency liquidity swap lines) with the Bank of England, the ECB, the Bank of Japan, and the Swiss National Bank. If drawn upon, these arrangements would support operations by the Federal Reserve to provide liquidity in sterling in amounts of up to £30 billion, in euro in amounts of up to €80 billion, in yen in amounts of up to ¥10 trillion, and in Swiss francs in amounts of up to CHF 40 billion.