Treasury reveals details of toxic-asset purchase program

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Treasury pledged Monday to commit $75 billion to $100 billion of its financial bailout fund to soak up distressed assets now choking bank balance sheets.

Financial stocks jumped on the news, helping send U.S. stock futures sharply higher. Citigroup stock rose 20% to $3.15 a share and Bank of America rose 17% to $7.25.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's banking plan will use low-interest loans and between $75 billion to $100 billion of what's left of the government's $700 billion bailout fund to entice private sector investors to initially buy about buy $500 billion in toxic assets — taking them off the books of the nation's banks.

The administration also said the initial effort could grow to $1 trillion, as the program proves successful in attacking the problem that has stifled bank lending to consumers and business, compounding the global economic downturn.

In its lengthy fact sheet, the administration says it expects a broad array of private sources, from pension funds to insurance companies and other long-term investors to bid for the distressed assets.

The Federal Reserve, which is the U.S. central bank, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., an independent agency of the government that backs bank deposits, will have large roles in financing the deals.

Geithner wrote in Monday's Wall Street Journal that the new bank program aims to "resolve the crisis as quickly and effectively as possible at the least cost to the taxpayer. ... Simply hoping for banks to work these assets off over time risks prolonging the crisis."

The government has been struggling since the credit crisis hit last fall to find a way to sop up the bad assets.

The Geithner banking plan is designed to resolve the vexing problems of how to price the bad bank assets while showing the government has sufficient capital to make a difference.

So far, market reaction to this proposal is more favorable than Geithner's initial broad outline for the overhaul on Feb. 10, when investors, upset with a lack of detail, sent the Dow Jones industrial average tumbling.