On March 19, 2020, the New York Fed entered into temporary U.S. dollar liquidity arrangements (swap lines) with the Reserve Bank of Australia, the Banco Central do Brasil, the Danmarks Nationalbank (Denmark), the Bank of Korea, the Banco de Mexico, the Norges Bank (Norway), the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and the Sveriges Riksbank (Sweden).
These facilities, like those standing agreements between the New York Fed and other central banks, are designed to help lessen strains in global U.S. dollar funding markets, mitigating the effects of these strains on the supply of credit to households and businesses, both domestically and abroad.
These new facilities will support the provision of U.S. dollar liquidity in amounts up to $60 billion each for the Reserve Bank of Australia, the Banco Central do Brasil, the Bank of Korea, the Banco de Mexico, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and the Sveriges Riksbank and $30 billion each for the Danmarks Nationalbank, the Norges Bank, and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. These U.S. dollar liquidity arrangements will be in place for at least six months.
The Federal Reserve also has standing U.S. dollar liquidity swap lines in place since October 31, 2013, with the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, and the Swiss National Bank. Specifically, two types of liquidity swap lines were established to improve liquidity conditions in money markets in the United States and abroad during times of market stress:
The New York Fed undertakes certain small value transactions from time to time for the purpose of testing operational readiness. The results of small value exercises of the central bank liquidity swap lines are published weekly.
In 1994, the New York Fed entered into bilateral currency swap lines (also referred to as reciprocal currency arrangements) of $2 billion with the Bank of Canada and $3 billion with the Bank of Mexico for the purpose of promoting orderly currency exchange markets. These lines were established under the North American Framework Agreement (NAFA). Mexico also has a $9 billion NAFA swap line with the U.S. Treasury, which the New York Fed manages as fiscal agent of the United States as directed by the U.S. Treasury.