Headquarters | Broadway and Locust Street St. Louis, Missouri, USA |
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Established | May 18, 1914 |
President | Alberto G. Musalem [1] |
Central bank of | |
Website | www |
The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis is one of 12 regional banks that make up the Federal Reserve System |
The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis is one of 12 regional Reserve Banks that, along with the Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., make up the United States' central bank. Missouri is the only state to have two main Federal Reserve Banks (Kansas City also has a bank). [2]
Located in downtown St. Louis, the St. Louis Fed is the headquarters of the Eighth Federal Reserve District, which includes the state of Arkansas and portions of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, the eastern half of Missouri and West Tennessee. It has branches in Little Rock, Louisville and Memphis. Its building, at 411 Locust Street, was designed by St. Louis firm Mauran, Russell & Crowell in 1924. The Eighth District serves as a center for local, national and global economic research, and provides the following services: supervisory and regulatory services to state-member banks and bank holding companies; cash and coin-handling for the District and beyond; economic education; and community development resources.
The following people serve on the board of directors as of January 1,2023 [update] . [3]
Name | Title | Term Expires |
---|---|---|
James M. McKelvey Jr. (Chair) | Founder and CEO, Invisibly Inc. St. Louis, Missouri | Dec. 31, 2023 |
Carolyn Chism Hardy (Deputy Chair) | President and CEO, Chism Hardy Investments LLC Bartlett, Tennessee | Dec. 31, 2025 |
Misty Borrowman | President and CEO, Bank of Hillsboro Hillsboro, Illinois | Dec. 31, 2024 |
R. Andrew Clyde | President and CEO, Murphy USA Inc. El Dorado, Arkansas | Dec. 31, 2023 |
Lal Karsanbhai | President and CEO, Emerson Electric Co. St. Louis, Missouri | Dec. 31, 2024 |
Elizabeth G. McCoy | CEO, Planters Bank Inc. Hopkinsville, Kentucky | Dec. 31, 2023 |
Penny Pennington | Managing Partner, Edward Jones St. Louis, Missouri | Dec. 31, 2025 |
Michael Ugwueke | President and CEO, Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare Memphis, Tennessee | Dec. 31, 2024 |
C. Mitchell Waycaster | President and CEO, Renasant Bank Tupelo, Mississippi | Dec. 31, 2025 |
Congress gave the Federal Reserve responsibility for setting monetary policy under the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 so that actions taken by the central bank would be free from political concerns. Along with the other 11 regional Feds, the St. Louis Fed helps guide the nation's economy by participating on the Federal Open Market Committee. Advised by the research division staff, President James Bullard contributes informed opinions about national and district conditions, and participates in FOMC decisions concerning monetary policy, including setting the federal funds rate.
The St. Louis Fed supervises state-member banks and bank holding companies, and, since the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, savings and loan holding companies. The Banking Supervision and Regulation division, led by senior vice president Carl White, [4] [5] is tasked with assessing the safety and soundness of financial institutions' assets and operations, the effectiveness of their risk management practices, and their compliance with laws and regulations governing activities and consumer protection. Examiners collect and verify data from financial institutions to ensure an accurate accounting of financial institutions' conditions, as well as data on the money and reserves in the banking system. [6] The Federal Reserve is considered the "lender of last resort" for financial institutions, and the St. Louis Fed is tasked with ensuring adequate liquidity in financial markets by making loans to depository institutions through the "discount window" and allowing the prudent use of intraday credit. The St. Louis Fed processes bank applications for acquisitions and new activities.
Twelve senior executives of banks, thrift institutions and credit unions in the Eighth District serve on the St. Louis Fed's Community Depository Institutions Advisory Council (CDIAC), [7] which meets twice a year to advise the St. Louis Fed president on the credit, banking and economic conditions facing the members' institutions and communities. The chairman of the St. Louis Fed's CDIAC represents the Eighth District at the Board of Governors' CDIAC [8] meetings, held twice annually. Banking-related publications include quarterly banking performance data, tailored to bank executives in the Eighth District. The publication Central Banker was discontinued in 2014.
As part of Banking Supervision and Regulation, the St. Louis Fed's Community Development department provides financial institutions and others with information on the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), community and economic development, and issues related to credit access. The department also facilitates partnerships between lenders and their communities and seeks to generate economic development and affordable housing throughout the Eighth District. Executives from organizations throughout the district serve on the St. Louis Fed's Community Development Advisory Council, [9] which was created to keep the St. Louis Fed's president and community development staff informed about development issues and to suggest ways the bank might support local development efforts. The executives are all experts in community and economic development and represent nonprofit organizations, financial institutions, universities, local governments and foundations. Community Development holds many events throughout the year, covering such topics as the impact and possible solutions to foreclosures and vacancies, neighborhood revitalization, rebuilding household balance sheets, and reaching the unbanked and underbanked. Publications include Bridges, [10] a quarterly publication for community organizations and leaders.
The St. Louis Fed's research division, led by executive vice president Carlos Garriga, [11] produces economic research for a wide range of national and international audiences. In the 1960s, the St. Louis Fed garnered a reputation as a maverick in the Federal Reserve System because of its espousal of monetarism. Spurred by bank president Darryl Francis and research director Homer Jones, the bank's economists published research showing a direct relationship between the growth of money and inflation. Monetarist theories have since been adopted widely.
St. Louis Fed economists previously released the Burgundy Books, [12] patterned after the Federal Reserve System's Beige Book , as an economic snapshot of the four zones in the district (Little Rock, Louisville, Memphis and St. Louis). The Burgundy Books collected data and anecdotal feedback from numerous sources to help track the district's consumer spending, commercial and residential real estate, manufacturing and industrial activities, banking data and more. Publication was discontinued after 2015.
Research publications include the Review, [13] a journal of national and international economic developments, particularly focusing on their monetary aspects; Economic Synopses, [14] short essays and reports on the economic issues of the day; and The Regional Economist, [15] a magazine with articles written largely by economists but for readers who, for the most part, aren't economists.
The St. Louis Fed's research division maintains FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data), a database of hundreds of thousands time series from national, international, private and public sources. [16] [17] Data series include interest rates, gross domestic product and its components, GDP and gross national product together, employment and population, consumer price indexes, monetary aggregates and Treasury constant maturity. FRED and the other free online data services—ALFRED, CASSIDI and FRASER—are collectively, with other research sites, accessed several million times a year. Writing at Business Insider , Joe Weisenthal called FRED "The most amazing economics website in the world." [18] The bank also maintains the Research Papers in Economics (RePEc) database, a listing of economics authors and the Economics Departments, Institutes and Research Centers in the World (EDIRC) databases.[ citation needed ]
Former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad once served on the staff of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, where he did early research on the American Divisia Monetary Aggregates.
The St. Louis Fed's Econ Lowdown [19] provides a variety of free online tools for K-16 educators nationwide, including online courses, audio and video podcasts, apps, personal finance chats, and PDF and interactive whiteboard versions of lesson plans. The economics topics covered include basic concepts such as opportunity cost and supply and demand to more complex topics such as comparative advantage and monetary policy. In personal finance, the topics include earning income, taxes, budgeting, saving, banks and credit cards. Economic education staff provide conferences for K-16 educators. Economic Education publishes a newsletter, Page One Economics. [20] Another newsletter, Inside the Vault, [21] was retired in 2015. Another publication, In Plain English, [22] is a multimedia online course on the structure and functions of the Federal Reserve System. Many materials, including personal finance online courses and personal finance chats, are available in Spanish as well as English.
The St. Louis Fed supports the U.S. Treasury with a number of functions. The Treasury Division includes the Treasury Relations and Support Office (TRSO), which manages the Federal Reserve System's overall relationships with the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Bureau of the Fiscal Service and Office of Fiscal Assistant Secretary. The St. Louis Fed's Treasury Division supports the following U.S. Treasury programs: Debt Management Services, Fiscal Accounting Operations, Information and Security Services, Payment Management, Revenue Collections Management, and Treasury Security Services. It also serves as the offering administrator for the Fed's Term Deposit Facility.
Beginning in the mid-2000s, the Federal Reserve consolidated its check-handling services as the number of paper checks fell rapidly in favor of check cards, debit cards and electronic bill payments. The most recently completed payments study (released in late 2010) revealed that more than three-quarters of noncash payments in America were done electronically. [23] On March 3, 2010, the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland became the Fed's single paper check processing and adjustments site and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta became the Fed's single electronic check processing site. The St. Louis Fed provides currency and coin handling services for the Eighth District and beyond, which includes helping to ensure that depository institutions have enough currency and coin to meet public demand through currency ordering and depositing services. The St. Louis Fed also checks currency for fit status (money that can still be circulated), destroys notes that can no longer be circulated and reports counterfeit money to the United States Secret Service.
The St. Louis Fed holds several events annually for educators, civic and business leaders, bankers and more throughout the district. These include the "Dialogue with the Fed" [24] events for the public, in which St. Louis Fed experts discuss economic matters such as the federal deficit, the financial crisis and unemployment; and "Economic Briefings", where a Fed economist or other expert discusses the current local and national economy. The St. Louis Fed also features research symposiums, educator workshops and special presentations on topics such as the cost of higher education and recession demographics.
As with all Federal Reserve banks, the St. Louis Fed established an Office of Minority and Women Inclusion (OMWI) [25] in January 2011, as called for by the Dodd-Frank Act. The St. Louis OMWI is designed to increase participation of minority- and women-owned businesses in Bank procurement needs, further diversify the St. Louis Fed's workforce at all levels, and support financial literacy efforts at inner-city, girls' and majority-minority high schools.
When the Federal Reserve System was established in 1914, the chief executive officers of the regional banks were known as Governors. The position was renamed to President after the Banking Act of 1935.
# | Photo | CEO | Life span | Term start | Term end | Ref | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Governors | |||||||||||||||||
1 | Rolla Wells | 1856–1944 | October 28, 1914 | February 5, 1919 | [26] | ||||||||||||
2 | David C. Biggs | 1866–1931 | February 5, 1919 | December 31, 1928 | [27] | ||||||||||||
3 | William McChesney Martin Sr. | 1874–1955 | January 16, 1929 | — | — | ||||||||||||
Presidents | |||||||||||||||||
(3) | William McChesney Martin Sr. | 1874–1955 | — | February 28, 1941 | [28] | ||||||||||||
4 | Chester C. Davis | 1887–1975 | April 16, 1941 | February 1, 1951 | [29] | ||||||||||||
5 | Delos C. Johns | 1899—1981 | February 1, 1951 | February 28, 1962 | [30] | ||||||||||||
6 | Harry A. Shuford | 1913-2007 | October 1, 1962 | January 16, 1966 | [31] | ||||||||||||
7 | Darryl R. Francis | 1912–2002 | January 17, 1966 | February 29, 1976 | [32] | ||||||||||||
8 | Lawrence K. Roos | 1918–2005 | March 22, 1976 | January 31, 1983 | [33] | ||||||||||||
9 | Theodore H. Roberts | February 1, 1983 | December 31, 1984 | [34] | |||||||||||||
10 | Thomas C. Melzer | June 1, 1985 | January 31, 1998 | [35] | |||||||||||||
11 | William Poole | 1937– | March 23, 1998 | March 31, 2008 | [36] | ||||||||||||
12 | James B. Bullard | April 1, 2008 | August 15, 2023 | [37] | |||||||||||||
– | Kathleen O’Neill Paese Acting | August 15, 2023 | April 1, 2024 |
The Federal Reserve System is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a series of financial panics led to the desire for central control of the monetary system in order to alleviate financial crises. Over the years, events such as the Great Depression in the 1930s and the Great Recession during the 2000s have led to the expansion of the roles and responsibilities of the Federal Reserve System.
The Federal Reserve Act was passed by the 63rd United States Congress and signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on December 23, 1913. The law created the Federal Reserve System, the central banking system of the United States.
The monetary policy of The United States is the set of policies which the Federal Reserve follows to achieve its twin objectives of high employment and stable inflation.
In macroeconomics, money supply refers to the total volume of money held by the public at a particular point in time. There are several ways to define "money", but standard measures usually include currency in circulation and demand deposits. Money supply data is recorded and published, usually by the national statistical agency or the central bank of the country. Empirical money supply measures are usually named M1, M2, M3, etc., according to how wide a definition of money they embrace. The precise definitions vary from country to country, in part depending on national financial institutional traditions.
A Federal Reserve Bank is a regional bank of the Federal Reserve System, the central banking system of the United States. There are twelve in total, one for each of the twelve Federal Reserve Districts that were created by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. The banks are jointly responsible for implementing the monetary policy set forth by the Federal Open Market Committee, and are divided as follows:
The chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is the head of the Federal Reserve, and is the active executive officer of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The chairman presides at meetings of the Board.
Janet Louise Yellen is an American economist serving as the 78th United States secretary of the treasury since January 26, 2021. She previously served as the 15th chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018. She is the first woman to hold either post, and has also led the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
The Community Reinvestment Act is a United States federal law designed to encourage commercial banks and savings associations to help meet the needs of borrowers in all segments of their communities, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. Congress passed the Act in 1977 to reduce discriminatory credit practices against low-income neighborhoods, a practice known as redlining.
The Federal Reserve System, commonly known as "the Fed," has faced various criticisms since its establishment in 1913. Critics have questioned its effectiveness in managing inflation, regulating the banking system, and stabilizing the economy. Notable critics include Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman and his fellow monetarist Anna Schwartz, who argued that the Fed's policies exacerbated the Great Depression. More recently, former Congressman Ron Paul has advocated for the abolition of the Fed and a return to a gold standard.
The Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980 is a United States federal financial statute passed in 1980 and signed by President Jimmy Carter on March 31. It gave the Federal Reserve greater control over non-member banks.
Excess reserves are bank reserves held by a bank in excess of a reserve requirement for it set by a central bank.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is one of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks of the United States. It is responsible for the Second District of the Federal Reserve System, which encompasses the State of New York, the 12 northern counties of New Jersey, Fairfield County in Connecticut, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Located at 33 Liberty Street in Lower Manhattan, it is by far the largest, the most active, and the most influential of the Reserve Banks.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago is one of twelve Federal Reserve Banks that, along with the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, make up the Federal Reserve System, the United States' central bank. The Chicago Fed serves the Seventh District, which encompasses the northern portions of Illinois and Indiana, southern Wisconsin, the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, and the state of Iowa. In addition to participation in the formulation of monetary policy, each Reserve Bank supervises member banks and bank holding companies, provides financial services to depository institutions and the U.S. government, and monitors economic conditions in its District.
The United States Federal Reserve System is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913. </ref> https://www.federalreserveeducation.org/about-the-fed/archive-history/#:~:text=1913%3A%20The%20Federal%20Reserve%20System%20is%20Born&text=By%20December%2023%2C%201913%2C%20when,private%20banks%20and%20populist%20sentiment.
Lael Brainard is an American economist serving as the 14th director of the National Economic Council since February 21, 2023. She previously served as the 22nd vice chair of the Federal Reserve between May 2022 and February 2023. Prior to her term as vice chair, Brainard served as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, taking office in 2014. Before her appointment to the Federal Reserve, she served as the under secretary of the treasury for international affairs from 2010 to 2013.
Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) is a database maintained by the Research division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis that has more than 816,000 economic time series from various sources. They cover banking, business/fiscal, consumer price indexes, employment and population, exchange rates, gross domestic product, interest rates, monetary aggregates, producer price indexes, reserves and monetary base, U.S. trade and international transactions, and U.S. financial data. The time series are compiled by the Federal Reserve and many are collected from government agencies such as the U.S. Census and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The Structure of the Federal Reserve System is unique among central banks in the world, with both public and private aspects. It is described as "independent within the government" rather than "independent of government".
This article details the history of banking in the United States. Banking in the United States is regulated by both the federal and state governments.
The Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research (FRASER) is a digital archive begun in 2004 by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis to safeguard, preserve and provide easy access to the United States’ economic history, particularly the history of the Federal Reserve System, through digitization of documents related to the U.S. financial system.
The vice chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is the second-highest officer of the Federal Reserve, after the chair of the Federal Reserve. In the absence of the chair, the vice chair presides over the meetings Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.