Usage of the Fed’s newly-created liquidity facility for besieged US lenders more than quadrupled over the past week, data released on Thursday afternoon showed.

After a slow start, borrowing via the Bank Term Funding Program stood at nearly $54 billion as of Wednesday, up from just under $12 billion a week previous.

The facility was established two Sundays ago, as part of the joint effort between the Fed, Treasury and FDIC to restore confidence following the collapse of SVB.

Discount window loans stood at $110.2 billion as of Wednesday, down from the prior week’s record-setting $153 billion.

Analysts generally expected some of the discount window borrowing to migrate to the new facility, and on a cursory look, that appears to be what happened. Overall usage between the two was virtually unchanged on the week, at around $164 billion.

The standout this week was FIMA, the foreign repo facility, which jumped $60 billion out of the blue.

The easy answer to that ostensible mystery is that it’s related to the SNB and Credit Suisse’s liquidity needs. Last week, prior to the shotgun wedding with UBS, the bank said it would tap the SNB for $54 billion.

The Swiss obviously have access to the Fed’s swap lines too, which introduced a bit of ambiguity.

As a quick reminder: FIMA lets foreign monetary authorities temporarily sell their USD assets (so, basically their reservers) to SOMA. The idea is to give countries with dollar cash needs a way to meet that demand without selling their Treasurys on the open market.

Overall, the Fed’s balance sheet “grew” by another $95 billion over the last week, on top of the nearly $300 billion it expanded the prior week. Note the scare quotes around “grew.” I’d encourage readers to avoid commentary which suggests this is a “reversal” of QT. It’s not.