But some hailed the move as a way of preventing a crisis without directly involving the government, and said it reduced the so-called moral hazard that comes when the government bails out those who made risky bets, thus encouraging more foolish bets in the future. In this case, the Treasury encouraged the talks, but neither offered to put up money nor dictated the agreement.

“I don’t see this as a bailout,” said James Paulsen, chief investment officer at Wells Capital Management. “There is no public money involved in this. The government’s role here is facilitating discussion among private players to take care of this themselves. If the private players can find a way to help alleviate this, then why shouldn’t they?”

At issue is a borrowing crisis facing a group of institutions known as structured investment vehicles, or SIVs, that were little known even to many on Wall Street until the credit crisis erupted this year. These vehicles essentially are private banks, albeit ones without the benefits of deposit insurance or the right to borrow from the Federal Reserve. They lend long term, and borrow short term. If they cannot borrow money, they are in trouble.

The vehicles, often started by banks like Citigroup, were financed by issuing commercial paper, a form of short-term credit, for 90 percent or more of the value of their securities. The expectation was that the cushion of 10 percent or less would be enough so that the commercial paper could readily be sold at low interest rates, often to money market funds. Because commercial paper usually matures within months, not years, it is necessary to sell new commercial paper as the old paper is paid off.

Now, however, it is practically impossible to sell such paper, and the SIVs are faced with the threat of having to sell many of their securities into a market with few buyers. “It is in nobody’s interest to see a disorderly sale of assets by the SIVs,” said Nazareth Festekjian, a Citigroup managing director who was involved in planning the conduit.

The proposal came about from discussions among the banks and the Treasury Department, in which one idea considered was for the banks to just purchase the commercial paper issued by the SIVs. But that was rejected by some bankers, a person involved in the talks said, and the conduit idea was developed.

The new conduit will offer to buy many of the securities owned by SIVs, but at a cost to those vehicles. First they will have to pay a fee for the right to sell anything to the conduit, and part of that fee will be passed on to the banks, increasing their profits.