WASHINGTON — Total lending through the Federal Reserve Board's discount window continued to decline this week, off 6.3% from a week earlier, to $233.1 billion.
For the first time in five weeks, the central bank did not lend money to weak financial institutions. A week ago, the Fed reported $132 million in secondary credit.
Traditional borrowing by commercial banks grew 2.4%, to nearly $90 billion on Wednesday.
The Fed said it had extended $51.6 billion by Wednesday through the discount window to support American International Group Inc. The central bank has also created a limited liability corporation through the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that has lent $15.1 billion to AIG, unchanged from a week earlier.
The amount borrowed by investment banks from the discount window fell 7.2%, to $51.6 billion.
Lending against asset-backed commercial paper held by money market mutual funds dropped 30.1%, to $34.4 billion. The Fed said it has yet to make loans to another limited liability corporation that will buy unsecured assets held by money markets.
Most of the discount window loans -- $160.8 billion - will mature within 15 days. Another $36.6 billion will come due in one to five years, and $34.3 billion will be repaid in 16 to 90 days. The remaining $1.4 billion will mature in one year.
Separate from the discount window loans, the Fed purchased $312.4 billion of commercial paper by Wednesday, a 2.8% increase from a week earlier.
The Fed's balance sheet grew 3.8% during the past week, to $2.3 trillion on Wednesday. Reserves held at the central bank by financial institutions jumped 18.7%, to $777.8 billion.
