Absolutely, Mr. Garneau. I won't speak for EDC but rather for BDC. There are some factors in this that have caught us a little off guard, that is to say that we had to position ourselves in order to have the ability to act. The BCAP program includes five components, as I mentioned a little earlier.
I'm going to proceed from largest to smallest. The withdrawal of financial institutions other than the major Canadian banks has left roughly a 30% void in the market, that is to say 30% of the market has disappeared in a few months. It happened very quickly. As a result of the liquidity crisis, these lenders, who were in the Canadian market, became incapable overnight of raising funding to relend to Canadian businesses. Canadian financial institutions took back part of that market, but obviously were unable to fill the 30% void completely. I'll give you an example.
A major Canadian bank that previously relied on a consortium of a number of banks granted a comprehensive $200 million loan to a slightly bigger business. It is now having difficulty finding partners because there are few of them in the market right now. EDC and BDC have, to all intents and purposes, played a more important role with respect to major bank consortiums. BDC has had to implement that as well. We conducted our first transaction in March, and the equivalent of $300 million is currently being reviewed. We are making good progress in this sector.
There's also the work that's being done together with the financial institutions to be able to share the risk. That's one of the fundamental principles of the BDAP. The idea isn't to make it so BDC or EDC becomes the bankers' banker. The idea is to share the risk. In February and March, we noted an increase in our joint transactions. For example, a $10 million transaction went through my office yesterday. It involved a GM car dealer, and thus was a fairly risky transaction. We took part of it, on a term basis, and the bank took another. That's what we call pari passu transactions, that is to say transactions for which the risk is shared. That's the second element.
As regards the third element, we are going to implement a credit margin guarantee program this week. Some SMEs, particularly in vulnerable sectors, such as the manufacturing sector, are having trouble increasing their credit margin. They currently need this increase right now to meet all kinds of challenges they are facing, such as paying their suppliers. It is taking longer to collect on accounts receivable. This guarantee program will help financial institutions maintain their credit margins at pre-crisis levels or higher, if necessary. Today we began going round to the financial institutions to present our guarantee program. Once again, this is a matter of sharing. We don't completely guarantee the line of credit, but merely a portion of it. This will generate a little liquidity in the market. On June 15, we will be able to report to the government on progress on this matter.
As regards the fourth initiative, I would say that, for the smallest transactions, those representing less than $7.5 million or $10 million, it is hard to share the risk with financial institutions because it takes too much time. We are exploring a mechanism that would enable us to purchase, as a block, a portion equivalent to 50%. For example, we can take 50% of 10 transactions, which puts cash back into the financial system and enables the bank to use that cash to grant other loans. That's a more indirect measure, but it's also effective.
Last but not least—this takes longer to explore—is the way in which BDC is able to interact with the financial institutions concerning, for example, loans that are declined by their scoring systems. Is there a portion of these loans that BDC can take? We obviously won't take the financial institutions' losses, but we could perhaps help some of those clients. This idea is currently being explored, and I will have to talk to you about it a little later perhaps because we haven't yet found the key to doing this.
That said, in January, February and March, BDC granted $750 million in financing to Canadian SMEs across Canada. We are finishing our year today, March 31, and we have put $3 billion in funding into the Canadian market. Even in our normal operations, we are still supporting the sectors, particularly the manufacturing sector. I would say that we pay more attention to it because there is less of an inclination to lend to the manufacturing sector. That's always been a top sector for BDC.
I hope that answers your question.