Fed opens vault on 21,000 Wall Street deals

By Chris Isidore, senior writer

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Federal Reserve revealed details for the first time Wednesday of all the steps it took to stabilize the nation's financial sector during the markets crisis of the last few years.

The central bank posted details of more than 21,000 transactions with major banks and Wall Street firms between December of 2007 and July of 2010, including purchasing $1 trillion in mortgages, and spending to back consumer and small business loans as well as commercial paper used to keep large corporations running.

The rescues of the investment bank Bear Stearns in March of 2008, and insurance behemoth AIG in September of that year were also revealed in far greater detail, as were programs to make dollars available to foreign central banks in return for their currency, in order to keep international trade flowing.

Most of the special programs set up by the Fed in response to the crisis of 2008 have since expired, although it still holds close to $2 trillion in assets it purchased during that time. The Fed said it did not lose money on any of the transactions that have been closed and it does not expect to lose money on the assets it still holds.

The details of which banks participated in the Fed's emergency programs, and how the banks benefited from the transactions, had never before been revealed. Critics of the Fed in Congress demanded the release of this information as part of the financial regulatory reform act that was passed in July.

The Fed has yet to reveal which banks and firms received emergency loans at its so-called discount window. It argued that revealing the information could cause a run on the banks that needed to draw cash at the discount window to cover their cash needs. But under the new law, it will reveal future discount window transactions following a two-year lag.