Geithner extends US bank bailout scheme

Business, Normal

US treasury secretary Timothy Geithner has announced that the US$700 billion (K1.88 trillion) US financial bail-out fund will be extended until October next year.
The extension was “necessary to assist American families and stabilise financial markets”, he said in a letter to congressional leaders.
But he pledged to deploy no more than US$550 billion (K1.5 trillion) of it.
The bail-out scheme was scheduled to expire at the end of this year but will now run until Oct 3, 2010.
The troubled asset relief programme (Tarp) was established in the last few weeks of the Bush administration.
Money from the fund has helped rescue Wall Street banks, car makers and other companies. – AFP.