The Federal Open Market Committee on Wednesday announced the establishment of two standing repurchase agreement (repo) facilities—a domestic standing repo facility (SRF) and a repo facility for foreign and international monetary authorities (FIMA repo facility). These facilities will serve as backstops in money markets to support the effective implementation of monetary policy and smooth market functioning.
Under the SRF, the Federal Reserve will conduct daily overnight repo operations against Treasury securities, agency debt securities, and agency mortgage-backed securities, with a maximum operation size of $500 billion. The minimum bid rate for repos under the facility will be set initially at 25 basis points, somewhat above the general level of overnight interest rates. Counterparties for this facility will include primary dealers and will be expanded over time to include additional depository institutions.
Under the FIMA repo facility, the Federal Reserve will enter into overnight repurchase agreements as needed with foreign official institutions against their holdings of Treasury securities maintained in custody at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The rate for this facility will be set initially at 25 basis points with a per counterparty limit of $60 billion. By creating a temporary source of dollar liquidity for FIMA account holders, the facility can help address pressures in global dollar funding markets that could otherwise affect financial market conditions in the United States.
Primary dealers will continue to be counterparties for repo operations under the SRF. The SRF counterparties will be expanded to include additional depository institutions. Initially, criteria will be established to effectively manage onboarding of interested depository institutions. Consistent with the New York Fed’s commitment to ensuring its counterparty policies promote a fair and competitive marketplace, these criteria will be adjusted over time to expand depository institution eligibility. The initial criteria will allow depository institutions with holdings of Treasury, agency debt, and agency mortgage-backed securities greater than $5 billion as of June 30, 2021 or with total assets greater than $30 billion to express interest starting on October 1, 2021. All counterparties must be able to transact on the tri-party repo platform.