Inevitably, these sparked some misgivings about the evolving role of the Central Bank. Central banks in systemic countries have moved center-stage. The US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, and the Bank of Japan have moved well beyond the traditional ‘lender of last resort’ function and financial orthodoxy.
Many central banks increased their longer-maturity lending and expanded the set of assets they accepted as collateral to further help banks that found themselves with suddenly illiquid assets. The ECB, which had regularly auctioned longer-term funds, increased both the size and frequency of those auctions. The Bank of England and the Bank of Canada conducted similar term funding operations in their own currencies.