WASHINGTON – The Federal Reserve had $85.8 billion in loans outstanding last week in three of the programs it rolled out last month to protect the economy during the coronavirus pandemic.
In a report to Congress that provided a look at the three programs as of April 14, it said Friday that it had $51.1 billion in loans outstanding for a program to support money market mutual funds and another $34.5 billion outstanding in loans to the giant Wall Street financial institutions that serve as primary dealers in the Treasury bond market.
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For the third program, the Fed said it had $249 million in loans outstanding to support the commercial paper lending market.
In the first few weeks of operation, these programs had earned $39.4 million in interest and fees with no losses incurred, the Fed said.
The report on the three programs contained no names of the institutions receiving the loans.
The Fed announced on Thursday that it will provide monthly reports on other programs it has begun that will include the names of the institutions receiving the loans and the amount of those loans and the interest rates being paid.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell, in announcing this reporting effort, said the Fed was “committed to transparency and accountability” in the way it operates the various programs that are part of the $2 trillion rescue program approved by Congress last month.
That rescue effort has come under criticism after disclosures that some major publicly traded companies had obtained forgiveable loans from the government’s Paycheck Protection Program.
And the program quickly ran out of money, leaving many small and mid-size companies unable to obtain loans, a problem Congress sought to address with passage Thursday of another $484 billion in aid for small businesses, health care and virus testing.