The Credit Crunch and the UK Economy - speech by Sir John Gieve

He first notes that like other central banks, the Bank of England has “…adapted (its) money market operations to provide the liquidity the banking system as a whole has required. First, we have allowed banks to increase their reserve balances at the Bank, increasing the size of our overall provision of central bank money; second, within that larger total, we have shifted the balance towards longer-term lending as the terms of market finance have shortened; third, we have widened the collateral we accept for longer-term repos. And in April, we introduced a special scheme to provide banks with up to three years’ finance for legacy assets which have become illiquid.”

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