Michael McKee
Bloomberg
June 25, 2009

The Federal Reserve will let one of its emergency programs expire and trim two others in a sign that improving financial markets allow a first step toward ending its unprecedented interventions.

The three programs provide funds or Treasury securities to securities brokers and money-market funds. They are authorized under a provision allowing loans to nonbanks under “unusual and exigent circumstances.”

Five other emergency facilities, including foreign currency-swap lines with central banks around the world, will be extended by three months through Feb. 1, the Fed said in a statement in Washington. They would have expired Oct. 30.

“Conditions in financial markets have improved in recent months, but market functioning in many areas remains impaired and seems likely to be strained for some time,” the Fed said in its statement.

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