Australia central bank would only relaunch term funding facility in extreme circumstances
SYDNEY, Oct 9 (Reuters) -Australia's central bank said on Wednesday it would only relaunch the term funding facility, an emergency lending programme it opened during the COVID-19 pandemic, in extreme circumstances due in part to the huge costs it brought to the bank.
In a speech in Sydney, Reserve Bank of Australia Assistant Governor Christopher Kent said the facility met the objectives set out at the start of the pandemic, but the associated financial costs for the RBA were estimated to have been A$9 billion ($6.07 billion) as interest rates rose.
Around A$4 billion of the cost was the result of a decision to extend the facility in September 2020 when the banks actually did not need the funding to meet the borrowing demand from households and businesses, said Kent.
"The Board would consider such a tool in extreme circumstances when the cash rate target had been lowered to the full extent possible," he said.
"But it would do so only after consideration of a wide range of scenarios and the associated risks, and with a broader range of operational options than were available at the time of the pandemic."
In total, the facility provided A$188 billion in funding to lenders, with the last tranche of outstanding loans having been fully repaid in June 2024. It closed to new drawdowns in June 2021.
Thanks to pandemic-era bond buying, the RBA has already suffered two straight years of accounting losses totalling A$42.7 billion, which led the central bank to stop paying dividends to the government.
It will publish its annual report for the 2023-2024 financial year ended June 30 at the end of October.
($1 = 1.4837 Australian dollars)
Reporting by Stella Qiu; Editing by Jamie Freed
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