WASHINGTON (Reuters)-when Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008 and shattered the belief that the U.S. money market fund will never "break the buck," Washington scrambled to limit the damage. "
But as Europe's debt crisis threatens to put the u.s. financial system is under strain again, u.s. policy makers were concerned they don't turn to the same tools to support the industry's impromptu money market $ 2.6 trillion.
"We have done much to prepare for the banking sector," Jeffrey Lacker, President of the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank, said on Wednesday. "I'm less confident about financial markets and their ability to weather the main problem in the European institutions."
Senior u.s. officials are alarmed by the deepening debt crisis in Europe. The spread to Italy, the third largest economy in the euro zone, is considered certain to spillovers across the Atlantic, in part through ownership of European money market mutual fund securities.
Many investors believe the money funds are as safe as a result of lower account even though it is common knowledge that they are not supported by the federal deposit insurance protection.