Looks functionally the same as direct lending to the banks vs their mortgage-backed securities.

Don’t know why they are taking this indirect route. Maybe because the Fed is also doing a security lending facility vs direct lending, and the BOE doesn’t want to show them up by doing it right as a gesture of solidarity.

Like everyone in Spain talking with a lisp when pronouncing the ‘s’ sound because the king did way back.

Gets stranger by the day.

Treasury and Bank to publish mortgage remedy

by Chris Giles

The government and Bank of England’s plan to unblock mortgage markets will be published today, but its broad outline began to emerge shortly after Mervyn King, Bank governor, met the heads of the main British banks a month ago.

Unlike other European countries, which wanted to change accounting rules to increase the value of mortgage-backed securities on banks’ books, the British authorities have aimed to acquire these assets at a price higher than the current market values but lower than the price that reflects the fundamental risk of default.

Because they reckon a gap between the two prices exists, the intention is to ease the liquidity strains on banks without the taxpayer adopting much extra risk or buying assets that are fundamentally under water.

With Treasury approval, the Bank of England is to swap mortgage-backed securities for government paper for a year, with an understanding that these year-long swaps will be extended for a further two years.

The programme will act as a new Bank of England facility by which banks will be given short-dated and highly liquid Treasury bills with maturities of one year or less. The Bank will accept mortgage-backed securities and other asset-backed securities in exchange. So arrangements will not be counted as new government debt by public sector books.