Goldman Sachs will be able to ask the Bank of England for funding in a crisis after the American firm won approval to access the UK central bank’s liquidity scheme as an emergency back-stop.
It means that the Wall Street investment bank could receive temporary financial assistance from the British authorities as well as America’s central bank, the Federal Reserve.
Goldman is the first foreign-owned bank that is known to have won approval to access the Bank’s Sterling Monetary Framework, dubbed a back-stop loan window. If an approved organisation runs short of cash, it can go to the SMF “window” and ask for help to meet its liquidity obligations.
Goldman Sachs International, the group’s London arm, said in its half-year accounts that it received approval