Identifying term interbank loans from Fedwire payments data

Kuo, Dennis; Skeie, David R.; Vickery, James; Youle, Thomas

Report

Identifying term interbank loans from Fedwire payments data

Abstract: Interbank markets for term maturities experienced great stress during the 2007-09 financial crisis, as illustrated by the behavior of the one- and three-month Libor. Despite widespread interest in these markets, little data is available on dollar interbank lending for maturities beyond overnight. We develop a methodology to infer information about individual term dollar interbank loans settled through the Fedwire Funds Service, the large-value bank payment system operated by the Federal Reserve Banks. We find a sharp increase in the dispersion of inferred term interbank interest rates, a shortening of loan maturities, and a decline in term lending volume following the failure of Lehman Brothers in September 2008. Several diagnostic tests suggest that our approach provides a useful source of information about the term interbank market, allowing for a number of research applications.

Keywords: interbank markets; loan; Fedwire; algorithm;

JEL Classification: G01; G10; G21;