In a special report for the American Banker, National Mortgage News, and Asset Securitization Report, Brad Rustin, a partner at Nelson Mullins and chair of the firm’s Financial Services Regulatory Team, weighed in on the Fed’s actions in 2020 to manage the COVID-19 crisis and the actions it could take in 2021.

"All of the programs that launched early in March – the liquidity facilities and the aggressive drop in the rates – all of that tended to be very effective and act as an immediate injection," Rustin said. "I think that anything that was fast did well.

"We've created a lot of liquidity on Wall Street. We've kept the bond markets working; we've kept the Treasury markets working," he added. "But the time bombs in 2021 are right below that, meaning groups of businesses that were too big for the [Paycheck Protection Program], but not big enough to really have corporate credit, investment-grade securities bonds that really would have been picked up in the liquidity up top."