Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis building

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 Federal Reserve Banks (Kansas City also has a bank). 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. The recently renovated 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.

Current Board of Directors

The following people serve on the board of directors as of 2011: All terms expire December 31.

Class A

Class A

Name	Title	Term Expires
J. Thomas May	Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Simmons First National Corporation Pine Bluff, Arkansas	2011
William E. Chappel	President and Chief Executive Officer The First National Bank Vandalia, Illinois	2012
Robert G. Jones	President and Chief Executive Officer Old National Bancorp Evansville, Indiana	2013

Class B

Class B

Name	Title	Term Expires
Gregory M. Duckett	Senior Vice President and Corporate Counsel Baptist Memorial Health Care Corporation Memphis, Tennessee	2011
Sonja Yates Hubbard	Chief Executive Officer E-Z Mart Stores, Inc. Texarkana, Texas	2012
Cal McCastlain	Partner Dover Dixon Home PLLC Little Rock, Arkansas	2013

Class C

Class C

Name	Title	Term Expires
Ward M. Klein (Deputy Chair)	Chief Executive Officer Energizer Holdings, Inc. St. Louis, Missouri	2011
Steven H. Lipstein (Chair)	President and Chief Executive Officer BJC HealthCare St. Louis, Missouri	2012
Sharon D. Fiehler	Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer Peabody Energy St. Louis, Missouri	2013

President James B. Bullard

Main article: James B. Bullard

James Bullard took office as president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in April 2008. He directs the activities of the Bank’s head office in St. Louis as well as its three branches in Little Rock, Louisville and Memphis. In addition, he participates in the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the Federal Reserve’s principal monetary policymaking body. Dr. Bullard is an accomplished economic theorist, whose fundamental contributions to monetary economics and policy analysis are highly regarded in the profession. Dr. Bullard joined the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in 1990 and attained positions of increasing responsibility. Prior to being appointed president, he was deputy director of research for monetary analysis.

Responsibilities

Monetary policy

Main article: FOMC

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.

Supervisory functions

Main article: Lender of last resort

Main article: Discount window

The St. Louis Fed supervises state-member banks and bank holding companies. Due to the Dodd-Frank Act, all Reserve banks also will be supervising savings and loan holding companies. The Bank Supervision and Regulation division, led by Julie Stackhouse, 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. 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 Bank processes bank applications for acquisitions and new activities. Banking-related publications include Central Banker, a quarterly and online publication featuring Fed news and banking and economic opinions, tailored to bank executives in the Eighth District.

Community development

Main article: Community Reinvestment Act

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. The Community Development Advisory Council was created to keep the Bank'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, government, and foundations. Community Development holds many events throughout the year, including, Exploring Innovation, a semi-annual conference on community development innovation and special presentations on selected topics, such as the impact and possible solutions to foreclosures and vacancies. Publications include Bridges, a print and online quarterly for community organizations and leaders.

Economic research

Main article: Federal Reserve Economic Data

The St. Louis Fed’s Economic Research division, led by senior vice president Dr. Christopher J. Waller, 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.

Four times a year, St. Louis Fed economists release the Burgundy Books, patterned after the Federal Reserve System’s Beige Book, as an economic snapshot of the four major zones in the District (Little Rock, Louisville, Memphis and St. Louis). The Burgundy Books collect 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. Research publications include the Review, a journal of national and international economic developments, particularly focusing on their monetary aspects; Regional Economic Development, an occasional journal of local and regional economic development, with particular focus on the Eighth District; Economic Synopses, short essays and reports on the economic issues of the day; and The Regional Economist, a magazine whose articles are written largely by economists but for readers who, for the most part, aren’t economists.

Today, the St. Louis Fed's database of over 41,000 economic time series, FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data), is one of the nation's largest. Data series include interest rates, gross domestic product (GDP) and its components, GDP and gross national product (GNP) together, employment and population, consumer price indexes (CPI), monetary aggregates and Treasury constant maturity. FRED and the other free online data services—ALFRED, GeoFRED, CASSIDI and FRASER—are collectively, with other Research sites, accessed several million times a year. The current Palestinian Prime Minister, economist 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.

Economic education

The St. Louis Fed’s economic education group provides lesson plans, workshops and other materials for primary, secondary and high school teachers, as well as some classroom college professors. Topics, which include money and banking, economics, personal finance, history, the Federal Reserve, and economics and geography, are designed to help educators teach and help students understand economics and personal finance. Among the free economic education offerings are the Great Depression Project, and various curriculum units, such as GDP and Pizza, Cards, Cars and Currency and It’s Your Paycheck! Regular publications include Inside the Vault, which offers free lesson plans for primary, secondary and high school educators, and Liber8 Newsletter, published nine times a year and written for librarians, students and the general public on current economic topics. Other publications include Kids & Money (Spanish version: Los Niños y el Dinero), a booklet designed to help parents teach their school-age children about managing money. In Plain English is a print, CD and web-based guide to the structure and functions of the Federal Reserve System and includes classroom activities, quizzes and more.

U.S. Treasury support

Main article: United States Department of the Treasury

The St. Louis Fed supports the U.S. Treasury with a number of functions. Led by senior vice president Kathleen O. Paese, the Treasury Services 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 Public Debt, Financial Management Service and Office of Fiscal Assistant Secretary. The St. Louis Fed’s Treasury Relations and Systems Support (TRASS) office provides tax collection, cash management and reporting services to the U.S. Treasury, and serves as the offering administrator for the Fed’s Term Deposit Facility.

Payments support

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. As of 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. However, the St. Louis Fed still serves as the nation’s central processing site for Treasury checks and postal money orders. As led by senior vice president Karl W. Ashman, 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.

General outreach

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" events for the general 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 such topics as the cost of higher education and recession demographics.

See also

• Federal Reserve Act
• Federal Reserve System
• Federal Reserve Districts
• Federal Reserve Branches
• Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Little Rock Branch
• Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Louisville Branch
• Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Memphis Branch
• Structure of the Federal Reserve System

External links

• St. Louis Fed home page
• FRED home page
• Map of the District
• Great Depression Project
• In Plain English
• Dodd-Frank Regulatory Reform Rules roadmap
• Reforming the Nation's Financial System
• Tracking the Global Economy
• The Financial Crisis Timeline
• FOMC Speak