WASHINGTON — A week after commercial banks sent borrowing from the Federal Reserve Board’s discount window to a record high, lending fell 24%, to $33.838 billion on Wednesday. A pullback by both commercial and investment banks contributed to the drop.
Investment banks borrowed $26.479 billion, down from $33.443 billion a week earlier. The Fed issued $7.343 billion in primary credit to healthy commercial banks, a figure that is high in historical terms but down from the $10.341 billion distributed a week earlier. The remaining $16 million went to banks in rural or resort regions and no loans were made in the form of secondary credit to weaker institutions.
The vast majority of the loans — $27.087 billion — are slated to mature within 15 days. Another $6.751 billion will come due within 16 to 90 days.
Since the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is taking the lead in lending to investment banks, it dominated the discount window by distributing $33.131 billion. The San Francisco Fed lent $463 million and the Chicago Fed handed out $229 million.
The Philadelphia, St. Louis, Minneapolis, and Kansas City Fed banks distributed a combined $15 million in their districts.
Separately, the New York Fed said Thursday it auctioned off $33.95 billion of Treasury securities.
