Banks scramble for Fed liquidity after SVB collapse.
Banks sought record amounts of emergency liquidity from the Federal Reserve in the wake of the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, taking an all-time high $152.9 billion from the Fed's traditional lender-of-last resort facility known as the discount window as of Wednesday, while also taking $11.9 billion in loans from the Fed's newly created Bank Term Lending Program. The central bank's total balance sheet mushroomed by roughly $300 billion in the last week, reversing a substantial portion of the balance sheet reduction accomplished since last summer. The Fed's bank lending facility was launched on Sunday amid highly unsettled markets, rattled by the failure of regional financial firm Silicon Valley Bank on Friday and then Signature over the weekend.