FILE PHOTO: John Williams, Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, speaks at an event in New York, U.S., November 6, 2019. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Financial regulations put in place following the 2008 financial crisis may have contributed to recent ructions in short-term lending markets, New York Federal Reserve President John Williams said on Tuesday.

“My only message on this would be there are reasons we have regulations that were put in place after the crisis… That said, there may be ways that there are unintended consequences and inefficiencies,” Williams told reporters at a capital markets conference in Washington.

“We don’t want inefficiencies in terms of how those markets work so those are the things that will be studied carefully,” he added.

The New York Fed said last week it will purchase $60 billion in short-term Treasury bills through mid-December, keeping up the same pace for the balance sheet expansion program it launched last month in an effort to shore up liquidity in money markets.

The Fed began purchasing Treasury bills in mid-October to increase the level of reserves in the banking system and minimize volatility. The program was launched in response to a liquidity crunch in mid-September that caused borrowing rates in short-term lending markets to spike.