The Bank of England has created a sterling-denominated facility with the Bank for International Settlements, opening up a source of global liquidity to a much wider range of central banks.

The move echoes the role the BIS played in the latter half of the 20^th century, when it acted as intermediary to several global swap arrangements in a variety of currencies. More recently, central banks have tended to rely on a network of bilateral swap lines, but this excludes many countries.

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