An action plan agreed Friday in Washington by finance ministers and central bank governors of the Group of Seven major economies states that they will "take decisive action and use all available tools to support systemically important financial institutions and prevent their failure." The plan calls for injecting public capital into financial institutions — a necessary move to assuage financial turmoil. But it remains to be seen how soon the plan will have an effect.
In an attempt to quell market unease, the U.S. Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the central banks of Canada, Sweden and Switzerland lowered their benchmark interest rates by 0.5 percentage point Wednesday. But this has not stemmed the panic among stock investors.
Underscoring the depth of the current crisis, the finance leaders said they "agree today that the current situation calls for urgent and exceptional action." Most important, they agreed to "ensure that our banks and other major financial intermediaries, as needed, can raise capital from public as well as private sources, in sufficient amounts to re-establish confidence and permit them to continue lending to households and businesses."