Vancouver-based Riverview Bank took advantage of a short-term lending program created by the Federal Reserve Bank during the height of the nation’s financial crisis, according to documents released this month. All of the loans were for short terms and all have been repaid, said Kevin Lycklama, Riverview’s chief financial officer.

The low-interest loan program, which was available only to banks on solid financial footing, was created on Dec. 12, 2007, and ended on April 8 of this year.

Details of the loan program were disclosed as part of a massive document release required under the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul law passed by Congress in July. Under the law, the Federal Reserve must reveal detailed information about banks, securities firms, and other companies that were helped by emergency programs created during the financial crisis.

Riverview took advantage of the program because it offered a lower rate than the Federal Home Loan Bank, its usual borrowing source. “We just transferred all our borrowings to the Federal Reserve,” Lycklama said.

18 loans

During the program’s existence, the Fed held an auction every two weeks, offering loans for fixed time periods — typically 28 or 84 days. Loans to Riverview ranged from $10 million to $85 million, and the bank’s outstanding balance never exceeded $150 million, Lycklama said. In total, Riverview took out 18 loans during a 13-month period ending in March of this year that cumulatively amounted to $740 million.

Lycklama estimated the bank saved in the range of “a couple hundred thousand” dollars in interest costs. The program did not involve any taxpayer subsidy to banks and was not a bailout of banks, he said.

“You were leaving money on the table if you weren’t using it,” he said.

The program was primarily used by large national banks, but 13 banks based in Washington, including Riverview, and three in Oregon tapped the lower-cost loans.

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