The new auction facilities required planning and changes in existing systems, and we should consider retaining the new facilities for the purposes of bank discount window borrowing and securities lending against OMO-eligible paper, either on a standby basis or operating at a very low level when markets are functioning well in order to keep the new facilities in good working order.
The latter might require that we allow the auction to set the price without a constraining minimum, but a small auction should not distort the allocation decisions of private participants. Our experience in recent months has underlined the global interdependencies of financial markets.