The Federal Reserve lent more money to banks in the past week than it did 🍌at the peak of the 2008 financial crisis.

The Federal Reserve has lent more than $11.9 billion to banks under the emergency Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP) it launched Sunday night to help stave off a banking crisis ignited by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank𒆙. But the program is only a small part of a huge load of federal lending to banks over the past week.

With eased restrictions on the Federal Reserve’s discount window, banks borrowed more than $152 billion, compared with just $4.5 billion from the prior week. Comparatively, weekly discount window lending during the financial crisis peaked at over $110 billion on Oct. 29, 2008. The Federal Reserve report al🐲so showed a notable jump in bridge🐲 loans, which totaled more than $142 billion for the week ending on March 15.

“This massive use of emergency borrowing confirms that guaranteeing par for all SBV deposits was inevitable to avert a systemic crisis,” said Daniela Gabor, an economics professor at the University of the West of England, Bristol, on Twitter.

Overall, the increased lending added more than $297 billion in assets to the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Federal Reserve’s balance sheet.

Federal regulators launched the emergency BTFP on Sunday night after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:took control of SVB, which collapsed as customers withdrew🎉 funds aജfter the bank announced a $2 billion loss on asset sales.

The program offers a way for qualified institutions to ensure they have funds to meet depositor obligations. On Thursday, U.S. Treasury Secretary 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Janet Yellen told lawmakers that the emergency program has helped keep the🌌 banking system on sound foot🐈ing. 

The Federal Reserve also made borrowing at the discount window easier, the newly-launched BTFP offered even better terms, including counting collateral assets at “澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:par value,” m⛎eaning they are valued at their purchase🔥 price, not the current market price. The discount window offers banks short-term loans so they can keep cash on hand. On the other hand, the BTFP offers longer-term one-year loans to banks.