Governments worldwide have pledged more than $7 trillion in loans, guarantees, capital injections, and other assistance in their coordinated effort to prop up the global financial system, the Bank of England estimates.

About one-third of the total has been offered by the U.S. government, according to the Bank's most recent Financial Stability Report, which it published today.

As the Daily Telegraph in London notes, the global figure is equal to more than 12 percent of the world's total economic output this year.

Not all the money will be spent. Some will be used to guarantee debts and other assets, many of which still retain some or all of their face value. Some will buy illiquid securities that governments plan to sell later to recoup some if not all of their initial outlays. And some will be used to buy equity in banks, which can be sold later and may eventually fetch higher prices.

The total includes government guarantees of about $4.57 trillion worth of banks' "wholesale liabilities," including money-market borrowing; pledges to buy about $620 billion worth of toxic assets; and plans to inject roughly $617 billion worth of capital into banks.

The Bank figures that the U.S. portion will total $2.3 trillion, most of it—$1.4 trillion—in the form of guarantees for bank liabilities, including deposits. About $450 billion has been pledged to buy illiquid assets; $250 billion for capital injections into banks; and $193 billion loaned out through the Term Auction Facility so far.

"The very scale of government and central bank interventions during the present crisis will pose difficult transitional issues for banks as they seek to repair their balance sheets over the medium term," the Bank warned in the report.

"And, looking further ahead," it added, "the events of the past year or so clearly highlight the need for a fundamental overhaul of the regulatory safeguards used to mitigate systemic risk within the financial system."