The use of short-term wholesale funding was hardly unknown among major financial firms in the 1990s, but broadened significantly thereafter, both within large firms and in sponsored entities such as the now infamous Structured Investment Vehicles (SIVs) used to fund asset-backed securities.
This trend was a dramatic example of the ways in which  21  For a useful discussion of the pros and cons of variants on countercyclical capital buffers, see Douglas J. Elliott (2011), “An Overview of Macroprudential Policy and Countercyclical Capital Requirements,” (Washington: The Brookings Institution, March 10).