J.P.Morgan: BTFP Usage Picks Up

J.P.Morgan note that “loans on the Fed’s balance sheet increased by about $36bn during the week ending March 22. This was a much more modest increase than the $303bn increase reported for the prior week, but it built on that earlier big gain nonetheless. Use of the Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP) picked up over the past week (now with about $54bn of loans, up from only $12bn during the program’s first week), but lending still seems skewed towards the Fed’s more traditional lending tools - there were about $110bn of loans through the primary credit lending program (the discount window) as of this past Wednesday and about $180bn of “other credit extensions” that include FDIC bank bridge loans.”

• “One interesting development in the Fed’s latest H.4.1 report is that we are starting to see more lending take place in other Fed districts away from New York and San Francisco. Overall, the Fed’s balance sheet data suggest that the recent stresses in the banking system are significant, but do not give a clear message about how concerning these developments are.”