The Federal Reserve raised the rate it charges banks that borrow from the central bank when they run short of funds.
    The Fed said late Thursday it is raising its discount rate by a quarter percentage point, or 25 basis points, to 0.75%. The central bank said in a statement it made the move in response to improving financial market conditions.
    The move is largely symbolic, because banks do little borrowing at the discount window.
    The unanimous decision to boost the discount rate also has no effect on the more widely watched federal funds rate, which measures the rate banks charge each other for overnight loans. That rate is expected to remain between 0% and 0.25% for the foreseeable future, given the slack in the labor market and the still fragile state of the economy.
    But raising the discount rate allows Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke to take another small step toward normal monetary policy, after the past two-plus years were consumed in a financial firefight.
    "The modifications are not expected to lead to tighter financial conditions for households and businesses and do not signal any change in the outlook for the economy or for monetary policy," the Fed said in a statement.
    The Fed also shortened the term of some discount window loans and raised the minimum bid in the term auction facilities it uses to supply overnight funds to banks. Those facilities were among the many innovations Bernanke introduced since the onset of the credit crunch in mid-2007 to supply U.S. banks with funding.
    As the recession deepened, the Fed moved to support the housing market by buying more than $1 trillion of mortgage-related securities. When buying those securities, the Fed credited the selling banks with reserves at the Fed. This huge sum of so-called excess reserves has led to worries that any upturn in the economy will be met with an inflationary lending spike from banks.
    Bernanke has emphasized that the Fed will use multiple new tools to prevent the excess reserves from fueling inflation, including the payment of interest on reserves at the Fed and the sale of Fed assets.
    But as eager as policymakers are to show that policy is on a track toward normalization -- that is, a nonzero fed funds rate and a smaller Fed balance sheet -- the process is clearly going to take time.
    The Fed suggested as much Thursday, in explaining why it may be a while before the spread between the federal funds rate and the discount rate may return to its pre-crisis level of 1 percentage point. Following Thursday's increase, the spread is now half a percentage point.
    The central bank said Thursday's increase should "encourage depository institutions to rely on private funding markets for short-term credit and to use the Federal Reserve's primary credit facility only as a backup source of funds" and added that it will "assess over time whether further increases in the spread are appropriate."

美国中央银行美联储（Federal Reserve）上调了其向资金短缺的借款银行收取的贷款利率。
    本周四晚，美联储表示欲将贴现率增至0.75%，上调1/4个百分点，即25个基点。美联储在声明中表示，此次上调贴现率是因为金融市场状况好转。
    此举现实意义不大，因为银行很少在贴现窗口进行借贷。
    美联储内部一致同意上调贴现率，但这对更受瞩目的联邦基金利率——即银行间隔夜拆借利率并无影响。鉴于劳动力市场不景气加之经济疲软，在可预见的未来，联邦基金利率预计将维持在0% 至0.25%之间。
    不过，上调贴现率使得美联储主席本•伯南克（Ben Bernanke）又向货币政策正常化迈进了一小步，此前两年多，美联储一直忙着在金融市场上救火。
    美联储声称：“这些调整不会导致家庭和企业财政吃紧，也不表示美国经济或货币政策的前景有任何改变。”
    美联储还缩短了部分贴现窗口贷款期限，并提高了向银行提供隔夜资金的短期拍卖工具（term auction facilities）最低竞价。自2007年中信贷紧缩以来，为了向美国各银行提供资金，伯南克进行了多项创新，短期拍卖工具便是其中之一。
    后来随着经济衰退加剧，美联储为支撑房市，买入了超过1万亿美元的按揭相关有价证券。购买上述证券时，美联储直接在证券出售行的存款准备金账户上加记相应金额。由于这笔所谓的超额准备金数额巨大，人们担心经济稍有好转，银行贷款就将猛增，从而引发通货膨胀。
    伯南克已经强调，美联储将运用多种新工具，防止超额准备金引发通货膨胀，其中包括对存款准备金支付利息以及出售美联储资产。
    决策者急于表明政策正趋于正常化，即联邦基金利率不再是零，以及美联储资产规模缩减，然而，这一过程显然还需要时间。
    美联储在本周四同样解释了联邦基金利率与贴现率之息差要恢复到危机前的1%可能尚需时日的原因。在周四上调贴现率之后，目前该息差为0.5%。
    美联储表示，周四的贴现率上调将“鼓励存款机构依赖私人融资市场获得短期信贷，而仅将美联储的一级信贷工具（primary credit facility）作为一个备用的资金来源”，并称美联储“往后将评估进一步扩大该息差是否合适。”