The world’s central banks scrambled on Tuesday to address three simultaneous crises in money markets that led to violent jumps in interest rates as the financial system remained under severe stress.

The unpleasant trio were the enormous uncertainty created by the failure of the US administration’s plan to purchase toxic assets from banks, a severe shortage of US dollars in banks outside the US at the end of the quarter, and the breakdown of trust in money markets that has led to a drought of funds for those banks needing to borrow.