Bank of England Aids UK Mortgage Lender

The Bank of England, the British Treasury, and the Financial Services Authority have authorized a liquidity support facility for Northern Rock PLC, a major U.K. lender pressured by the global liquidity squeeze."The FSA judges that Northern Rock is solvent, exceeds its regulatory capital requirement, and has a good quality loan book," the three entities said in a joint news release. "The decision to provide a liquidity support facility to Northern Rock reflects the difficulties that it has had in accessing longer-term funding and the mortgage securitization market, on which Northern Rock is particularly reliant." The entities can be found on the Web at http://www.bankofengland.co.uk, http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk, and http://www.fsa.gov.uk.