U.S. BANK DISCOUNT BORROWINGS 310 MLN DLRS

  U.S. bank discount window borrowings
  less extended credits averaged 310 mln dlrs in the week to
  Wednesday February 25, the Federal Reserve said.
      The Fed said that overall borrowings in the week fell 131
  mln dlrs to 614 mln dlrs, with extended credits up 10 mln dlrs
  at 304 mln dlrs. The week was the second half of a two-week
  statement period. Net borrowings in the prior week averaged 451
  mln dlrs.
      Commenting on the two-week statement period ended February
  25, the Fed said that banks had average net free reserves of
  644 mln dlrs a day, down from 1.34 billion two weeks earlier.
      A Federal Reserve spokesman told a press briefing that
  there were no large single day net misses in the Fed's reserve
  projections in the week to Wednesday.
      He said that natural float had been "acting a bit
  strangely" for this time of year, noting that there had been
  poor weather during the latest week.
      The spokesman said that natural float ranged from under 500
  mln dlrs on Friday, for which he could give no reason, to
  nearly one billion dlrs on both Thursday and Wednesday.
      The Fed spokeman could give no reason for Thursday's high
  float, but he said that about 750 mln dlrs of Wednesday's
  float figure was due to holdover and transportation float at
  two widely separated Fed districts.
      For the week as a whole, he said that float related as of
  adjustments were "small," adding that they fell to a negative
  750 mln dlrs on Tuesday due to a number of corrections for
  unrelated cash letter errors in six districts around the
  country.
      The spokesman said that on both Tuesday and Wednesday, two
  different clearing banks had system problems and the securities
  and Federal funds wires had to be held open until about 2000 or
  2100 EST on both days.
      However, he said that both problems were cleared up during
  both afternoons and there was no evidence of any reserve
  impact.
      During the week ended Wednesday, 45 pct of net discount
  window borrowings were made by the smallest banks, with 30 pct
  by the 14 large money center banks and 25 pct by large regional
  institutions.
      On Wednesday, 55 pct of the borrowing was accounted for by
  the money center banks, with 30 pct by the large regionals and
  15 pct by the smallest banks.
      The Fed spokesman said the banking system had excess
  reserves on Thursday, Monday and Tuesday and a deficit on
  Friday and Wedndsday. That produced a small daily average
  deficit for the week as a whole.
      For the two-week period, he said there were relatively high
  excess reserves on a daily avearge, almost all of which were at
  the smallest banks.
  

