FACTBOX-Bank of England's money market toolkit

LONDON (Reuters) - The Bank of England pumped an additional five billion pounds of one-week loans into the interbank market on Thursday in a bid to boost confidence in fragile money markets.

Banks' reluctance to lend to each other has sent interbank rates soaring, compounding fears about the health of the financial sector.

Representatives from major banks are meeting BoE Governor Mervyn King on Thursday. They are expected to ask the central bank to do more to ease the money market squeeze.

Following are some of the tools at the central banks' disposal.

REGULAR MARKET OPERATIONS

The BoE regulates the amount of reserves in the financial system with weekly open market operations. Every Thursday it will either offer or drain one-week funds. Once a month it conducts a "term repo" operation when it offers to lend money for three, six, nine and 12-month periods against high quality collateral.

Representatives of the major banks may argue the central bank should be pumping more money into the market.

COLLATERAL REQUIREMENTS

The BoE has already conducted three special auctions since December when it has been prepared to lend against a broader range of collateral than normal. However, it has done less to loosen collateral requirements than either the European Central Bank or the Federal Reserve and many banking representatives argue it should do more.