For the credit facilities that we make available to multiple firms, we are not taking significant credit risk that might end up being absorbed by the taxpayer. For almost all the loans made by the Federal Reserve, we look first to sound borrowers for repayment and then to underlying collateral.
Moreover, we lend less than the value of the collateral, with the size of  4  BIS Review 48/2009  the "haircuts" depending on the riskiness of the collateral and on the availability of market prices for the collateral.