It was precisely under the extreme pressure that the financial system proved its stability. The market participants mastered the crisis situation spontaneously and networked their efforts: for example, the tasks that would normally have been performed in downtown Manhattan were carried out in New Jersey or in London. Or they agreed to extend the settlement period to five days and to conclude general money market trades at the official Fed rate (instead of fixing prices via brokers, some of whom could not be reached due to the collapse of technology). Furthermore, market participants practised restraint in stock sales and abstained from taking personal advantage of the general state of emergency. Creditors, notably the banks, also endeavoured to fulfil merely implicit commitments as far as possible and to ensure the functioning of the markets. All this would not have been possible without the tireless creative and networked efforts of thousands of shocked and grieving staff of the enterprises concerned and of the international financial community. The private measures for overcoming the crisis were also actively supported by the central banks, first and foremost by the Fed, which had fully retained its capacity to act from the outset despite being located in the immediate vicinity of "Ground Zero". It injected additional liquidity into the market and allowed the rate for one-day repos to fall to 1%. It also opened its counters to foreign banks operating in the United States and, when necessary, offered foreign central banks one-month dollar swaps.
Niklaus Blattner: Review of the Swiss economy: end-of-year media news conference Introductory remarks by Prof Dr Niklaus Blattner, Member of the Directorate of the Swiss National Bank, at the End-of-year Media News Conference, Zurich, 7 December 2001 *  *  *  11 September 2001: a test for the global financial system For a number of years now so-called systemic risks have received increasing attention from the central banks and from banking and financial market supervisory authorities. In extreme circumstances, systemic risks may ultimately lead to a breakdown of the financial system. They have their origin either in a transmission of liquidity and solvency problems between banks and other financial service providers or in the fact that numerous market participants are simultaneously affected by the same non-diversifiable risks. Examples of such risks are sudden, widespread and massive losses in the value of financial assets (stock market crash), serious malfunctioning of major financial market infrastructures, large-scale natural disasters or terror attacks which obstruct markets and market participants in economic or technical and physical respects. The consequence may be a substantial disruption of economic activity. The damage caused to the affected economies is liable to be correspondingly large. The terror attacks of 11 September 2001 hit the central nerve of the global financial system - New York, the major trading centre for the world's leading currency and the preferred location of the international banking and financial services industry.