Relatedly, we have an obligation to the public to be accountable for all our actions. To maintain the integrity of our actions, this involves strong governance, risk management, and independent oversight, all of which have been implemented for the facilities. Now that the facilities are operational, our focus is on extending access to the facilities. Access can take two forms: access for borrowers, and access for service providers. Access in the first sense is important to broaden the reach of the facilities, thereby supporting the flow of credit and strengthening backstop support for the economy. The Municipal Liquidity Facility, for example, broadened the program's eligibility so that smaller cities and counties could qualify to participate, expanding the potential issuers from around 75 in the program's original terms to nearly 400 now. The Main Street Lending Program also eased borrowing terms and expanded participation to include nonprofit organizations, which are playing a critical role in supporting disadvantaged communities during the pandemic. Access for service providers also matters, for several reasons. First, expanding the reach of our facilities to borrowers requires a broad-based and diverse set of service providers. Second, having a less concentrated set of service providers reduces the New York Fed's dependency on any individual firm, diversifying our risk exposures and enhancing our operational resilience. Third, we recognize that establishing a broad and diverse set of service providers may also prove beneficial to the service providers themselves, beyond the purely remunerative aspects.

This process includes a potential modification of the current scope of work for our vendor relationships, with a focus on carving out additional roles that might create new opportunities for a broader group of firms, including smaller vendors. Staff on the facilities are currently finalizing their competitive bidding strategies, and we expect to issue RFPs in the next several weeks. Turning to counterparties, in late July we announced an initiative to expand the set of counterparties that transact with several of the facilities. Specifically, the New York Fed is seeking to establish roles for non-primary dealer counterparties to serve as commercial paper dealers, eligible sellers, and agents for the Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF), the Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility (SMCCF), and the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF), respectively. These three facilities currently rely exclusively on the New York Fed's primary dealers, but the scale and scope of their activities make them well suited for an expanded counterparty base, particularly as we try to reach broader segments of the economy. This initiative represents a major step forward in our efforts to engage with small-tomidsize broker-dealers, including minority-, women-, and veteran-owned business enterprises (MW VBEs), as well as smaller businesses and investors that transact with these broker-dealers. Indeed, we have explicitly encouraged MW VBEs to apply, and I'm pleased to share that just yesterday we announced the addition of seven new broker-dealers for the SMCCF and two CPFF dealers, including several MWVBEs.