UK banks tapped US crisis loans

Barclays borrowed a cumulative $232bn (£149bn) from the US Federal Reserve's emergency funds during the financial crisis, according to data released by the central bank yesterday under a Freedom of Information request. The UK bank emerges as the largest user of the "term auction facility", which offered short-term one- and three-month loans as the money markets seized up.

It also emerged that RBS tapped £38.8bn of dollar loans in October 2008 from the Fed via the Bank of England. The Fed last night detailed more than 21,000 transactions with banks between 2007 and 2010.