At the end of each quarter, banks usually make an effort to balance their books. As a result of the ongoing credit crisis, however, completing this task at the end of the 3rd quarter fiscal 2008 was nearly impossible for most banks. Fortunately, the Federal Reserve Bank intervened to relieve the situation. In conjunction with the world’s major Central Banks, the Fed moved to make hundreds of Billions of Dollars in short-term capital available to financial institutions. The Fed will utilize swap agreements, which involve the exchange of blocks of currencies at agreed-upon exchange rates on agreed-upon dates. These particular swaps should help both to mitigate the shortage of Dollars on the open market and to further buttress the Greenback. AFP reports:

These expanded facilities will now support the provision of US dollar liquidity in amounts of up to 120 billion dollars by the ECB and up to 30 billion dollars by the Swiss National Bank.

Read More: Global central banks offer more dollars to markets

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