http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=apVp3yespCX8&refer=homeOct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve will double its auctions of cash to banks to as much as $900 billion and is considering further steps to unfreeze short-term lending markets as the credit crunch deepens.
``The Federal Reserve stands ready to take additional measures as necessary to foster liquid money-market conditions,'' the central bank said in a statement released in Washington today. Fed and Treasury officials are ``consulting with market participants on ways to provide additional support for term unsecured funding markets,'' the statement said.
Today's steps follow a hoarding of cash by banks that sent the premium on the three-month London interbank offered rate over the Fed's benchmark interest rate to a record. Industrial companies are also finding it harder to raise cash after the market for commercial paper shrank to a three-year low as investors flee even borrowers with few links to mortgages.
``It is pretty much all out war,'' said Christopher Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd., New York. ``They are pulling out all the stops to try and get borrowers and lenders to meet and do transactions once again.''
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