By Anthony Burke Boylan – We all remember that first day we rode our bikes without the training wheels, or the day you finally let your child in the pool without water wings.

Frightening, sure. But an important rite of passage nonetheless.

Though it might not seem so significant, this week’s announcement that the Federal Government will end an emergency guarantee fund for banks might someday look like that milestone.

The FDIC announced it will end the Debt Guarantee Program, a provision credited with stabilizing the industry when it was near collapse – one year after its inception. A portion of the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program, it may disappear entirely at the end of October, or the FDIC may extend it six more months for special cases.

The latter, of course, is just Dad standing close by the side of the pool during Junior’s first few swims post-flotation device.

This is good news, of course, because it’s what was supposed to happen. A less desirable scenario would be finding the industry still in such disarray that the extension of the program for another year was a fait accompli.

Lost in the alphabet soup of protective programs for business, the Debt Guarantee Program never was discussed to the extent of, say, TARP. In many ways, though, it was just as important.

The program allowed banks to issue debt with government backing and facilitated bank-to-bank lending at a time it had seized almost entirely. The FDIC provided temporary insurance for loans between banks, guaranteeing the debt in case of default, and it breathed life into a nearly moribund industry.

More than $304 billion was issued under the program to 94 institutions and the guarantees run through 2012.

To people who argued vociferously that bailouts were just the beginning of a government takeover of commerce, this could seem as significant as an occupying army pulling out of a country after war – the worst fears of being colonized have not been realized.

Some of the biggest users of the program have been General Electric and Citigroup, with crippled GMAC relying on it heavily as well.

Not to be overlooked, though, is the FDIC’s take of $9.3 billion in fees during a time when the agency is less than flush. No money was paid out for defaults in the program.

Any participants in an extended "emergency" program would be charged a fee of 3% of the debt issued – possibly more in particularly risky situations -- a steep increase from the 75 basis points charged during the initial year of the program.

In related good news, a temporary guarantee program for money market funds also will expire. One money market fund manager likely spoke for the financial industry as a whole when he was quoted thusly: “"The whole idea is for it to quietly expire unnoticed."

Not to overplay the analogy, but you fret and you worry and you suffer with their troubles, just like children. Then before you know it they’re all grown up.

Only in this case they won’t be missed.

Anthony Burke Boylan is a financial journalist and a PR and media consultant in Chicago. Reach him at Tboylan@capitalinsight.com