6  BIS Review 84/2001  In addition, in some periods the onset of financial stress may require a large increase in reserves to meet the demand for liquidity or the Fed may need to withdraw a large volume of reserves to offset increased discount window borrowing. These periods also require operations that are temporary but that last longer overnight.
Term repurchase agreements might fill this need very well, perhaps against a wider range of collateral than employed today. Today, most repurchase agreements are overnight, although the FOMC has authorized term repurchase agreements of as long as ninety days. A second source of such intermediate reserve operations could be the discount window. Credit could be auctioned for weeks or months to fill this need.