About $1.2 trillion: that's how much money the Federal Reserve lent to credit unions and banks in the period August 2007 through April 2010, in an effort to help prop up a sagging national economy.

Now Bloomberg News has sifted through 29,000 pages of previously secret documents to track who borrowed how much when.

Topping the list of credit union borrowers are U.S. Central, Western Corporate FCU, Alaska USA FCU, State Employees' Credit Union in North Carolina, Members United, Wisconsin Corporate Central, Marine Credit Union in Wisconsin and Service Credit Union in New Hampshire.

The new analysis extends upon the information reported in April in Credit Union Times .

The purpose of the loans was to keep credit markets functioning and to allow borrowing institutions to cope with cash flow shortfalls.

Amounts borrowed, per the Bloomberg parsing of the data, vary substantially.

U.S. Central, for example, logged a “peak” indebtedness – per Bloomberg – of $7 billion on Aug. 28, 20008. The corporate had an average daily balance owed the Fed of $600 million from Aug. 1 2007 through April 30, 2010. No other credit union approached the magnitude of U.S. Central's borrowings from the Fed.

WesCorp, by contrast, had a peak indebtedness of $2.8 billion and an average daily indebtedness of $100 million.

State Employees' CU hit its peak of $489 million on April 23, 2009.

Members United's peak was $268 million on Oct. 27, 2008.

Service CU had a peak of $24 million on Aug. 13, 2009.

Borrowing from the Fed is not necessarily an indication of financial weakness. Large borrowers included Bank of America, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. Also on the list are Ford, the Republic of Korea and General Electric.

Instant Insights /

Which Credit Unions Raised Tin Cups at the Fed&rsquo;s Lending Window?

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Which Credit Unions Raised Tin Cups at the Fed’s Lending Window?