Six major central banks from advanced economies announced coordinated actions to provide liquidity support to ease global financial strains, the U.S. Federal Reserve said Wednesday.
The Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, and the Swiss National Bank are all taking part.
"The purpose of these actions is to ease strains in financial markets and thereby mitigate the effects of such strains on the supply of credit to households and businesses and so help foster economic activity," the Fed said in a statement.
The central banks have agreed to lower pricing on the existing temporary U.S. dollar liquidity swap arrangements by 50 basis points so that the new rate will be the U.S. dollar overnight index swap (OIS) rate plus 50 basis points.
The pricing will be applied to all operations conducted from Dec. 5, 2011.
The authorization of these swap arrangements has been extended to Feb. 1, 2013. In addition, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, and the Swiss National Bank will continue to offer three-month tenders until further notice.