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Turkey faces high bar to US swap line deal, former Fed chief says: report

Facade on the Federal Reserve Building in Washington DC

Turkey’s foreign cash needs are not the sort of thing the US Federal Reserve is likely to relieve given its economic challenges and volatile diplomatic relations with the United States, the New York Fed’s former chief said in an interview, according to Reuters.

William Dudley, who from 2009-2018 was vice chair of the US central bank’s policy-making committee and ran its New York branch, which oversees foreign funding, said that “there is definitely a significant reluctance” to expanding the dollar swap lines.

Ankara is facing a cash crunch of depleted foreign reserves and relatively high debt obligations and has appealed directly to Washington for a Fed dollar swap line. It is also discussing funding with other central banks.

Dudley said that while some geopolitical friction between Ankara and Washington could pose another hurdle, a strong endorsement from US President Donald Trump could influence the Fed’s decision whether to extend funding to Turkey.

“I would be very surprised if the Fed did it unilaterally,” Dudley said by telephone.

“It seems the reasons why the swaps are needed in Turkey do not fit into the Fed’s stated goals. It’s also hard to imagine that the Fed would run out swaps to a country that is having some bumpy relations with the United States,” he added.

“Never say never, but the bar is pretty high to extending these swaps.”

The comments could dampen Turkey’s hopes to secure funding from the Fed, which did not include Turkey when in March it expanded dollar lines to Brazil, New Zealand, South Korea and others in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Turkish lira tumbled to a historic low against the dollar last week and is down more than 15 percent this year as investors fretted over the cash crunch and a severe economic slump due to pandemic containment measures.

Net foreign currency reserves at Turkey’s central bank have fallen to around $28 billion from $40 billion so far this year, reaching as low as $25 billion three weeks ago. The country’s short-term foreign obligations are around $170 billion.

Swap lines — in which the Fed accepts other currencies in exchange for dollars — are meant to support big foreign dollar markets, and any facility would be conditional in part on counterparty risk.

Asked last week about extending swaps to Turkey or others in need, a current Fed policymaker said lines are already in place with countries that have a relationship of “mutual trust” and high credit standards. Ankara’s relations with NATO ally Washington have been bruised by disputes over human rights, Western sanctions on Iran and Turkey’s purchase of Russian S-400 missile defenses for which it faces potential US sanctions.

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