Sept. 21 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve Board approved the applications of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to become bank holding companies, the Fed said.
``The Federal Reserve Board on Sunday approved, pending a statutory five-day antitrust waiting period, the applications of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to become bank holding companies,'' the central bank said in an e-mailed press release in Washington.
Fed officials also increased the two securities firms' ability to take out direct loans from the central bank, granting access against a wider pool of collateral. That step was made ``to provide increased liquidity support to these firms as they transition to managing their funding within a bank holding company structure,'' the Fed said.
The Fed Board also authorized the New York Fed to lend to the London-based broker-dealer subsidiaries of Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and Merrill Lynch & Co., the securities firm that agreed to a takeover by Bank of America Corp. earlier this month.
To contact the reporter on this story: Craig Torres in Washington at ctorres3@bloomberg.net.
