Discount Window Lending Up 19.2%

Lending through the Federal Reserve Board's discount window grew 19.2% during the past week, to $121 billion.

The growth came largely from lending against asset-backed commercial paper held by money market mutual funds. Such lending rose to nearly $29 billion Wednesday, from $3.7 billion a week earlier.

The Fed's balance sheet also reflects growing demand for funds from the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said Tuesday that it received $10.6 billion of loan requests; only $1.7 billion was requested last month.

Traditional borrowing by commercial banks dropped 12.5% during the week, to $39.6 billion, and $5 million of loans were made to weaker commercial banks. Loans to investment banks fell 14.3%, to $600 million.

The Fed said it had extended $45.5 billion by Wednesday through the discount window to support American International Group Inc. The central bank also has a limited-liability corporation designed to help the insurance giant; its loans were valued at $17.8 billion.

Also Wednesday, the Fed said its purchases of commercial paper fell 7% from a week earlier, to $168.5 billion.

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