MNI TRANSCRIPT:Powell On Functioning of Markets and Main St

     WASHINGTON (MNI) - The following is the portion of a transcript from

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's press conference after the FOMC meeting

Wednesday:

     Q: I'm struggling with two things that I hope you can provide clarity on.

Is the ongoing bond buying program, you say that it's needed to continue the

smooth functioning of markets. I guess most of us aren't really seeing the

instability in markets right now. Can you give us some clarity of what you see

that needs to be smooth at that level and pace? Second is, you know, you were

just talking about Fed concerns about small and medium-sized companies going out

of business during this. I guess, the main street lending program, when do you

expect loans to start happening, and do you think that ( indiscernible ) has

hurt the chances of some questions surviving?

     A: There have been gains in market function. Although, not fully back to

where you would say they were, FRFRM, in February before the pandemic arrived.

We don't take those gains for granted, though. This is a highly fluid situation

and we're not taking those for granted. As I pointed out in my statement, those

purchases are clearly also supporting highly accommodative financial conditions,

and that's a good thing. So that's why we are doing that. Turning quickly to

main street, so I would say that the THISH -- what we did is on main street to a

greater degree is we've listened to feedback, so we've BN out repeatedly for

feedback to create a much more difficult product than the other facilities, and

I think this last set of changes we made have been very positive for the

facility. I think it's going to be better ability to achieve its goals and -- so

we used the time we will. We're in the final run-up to starting the facility.

What we did earlier, early this week or later, whenever we did, we leered the

minimum loan size and increased the maximum loan size. Even more importantly we

linked in the security and stretched out the replacement scenario. They get two

years before they make principal payments and a one-year TLA on interest. We

heard from borrowers and lenders that these would be very helpful. We made them

the change the in the facility. The next step is to register them that loans

will be made. Shortly after that and those loans can be sold to 95 ERS of the

loans and it's 95% across the board now in the main street facility can be sold.

All of that should happen quickly now. I do think this is a challenging project,

but we have come to a better place. By the way SHTHS we're prepared to adopt

further if we need to. That's true of all the facilities. These are unique.

There's no playbook here. You have to draw this up and try it out, and we've

been very willing to adopt and will continue.

--MNI Washington Bureau; +1 202 371 2121; email: brooke.migdon@marketnews.com

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