To address the liquidity strains in Treasury and repo markets, the Fed directly purchased large amounts of Treasury securities and conducted term and overnight repo operations using the FOMC's open market operations authority.
To address strains in other markets, with the backing of the U.S. Treasury, the Fed used its 13(3) emergency lending authority to establish a number of facilities to support the flow of credit to households, businesses, and communities.2 The Federal Reserve also took a number of other actions, including easing terms on discount window lending and supervisory and regulatory actions, to encourage banks to lend and act as market intermediaries.3 The Fed's actions were effective in restoring financial market functioning, but the channels through which they operated varied.