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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 A central bank, reserve bank, or monetary authority is an institution that manages the currency and monetary policy of a country or monetary union, and oversees their commercial banking system. In contrast to a commercial bank, a centra ...
. Missouri is the only state to have two main Federal Reserve Banks (
Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more th ...
also has a bank). Located in downtown
St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
, the St. Louis Fed is the headquarters of the Eighth Federal Reserve District, which includes the state of
Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the O ...
and portions of
Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rock ...
,
Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th ...
,
Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...
,
Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...
, the eastern half of
Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...
and
West Tennessee West Tennessee is one of the three Grand Divisions of the U.S. state of Tennessee that roughly comprises the western quarter of the state. The region includes 21 counties between the Tennessee and Mississippi rivers, delineated by state law. Its ...
. It has branches in
Little Rock ( The "Little Rock") , government_type = Council-manager , leader_title = Mayor , leader_name = Frank Scott Jr. , leader_party = D , leader_title2 = Council , leader_name2 ...
,
Louisville Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. ...
and
Memphis Memphis most commonly refers to: * Memphis, Egypt, a former capital of ancient Egypt * Memphis, Tennessee, a major American city Memphis may also refer to: Places United States * Memphis, Alabama * Memphis, Florida * Memphis, Indiana * Memp ...
. 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.


Board of Directors

The following people serve on the board of directors .


President 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 The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), a committee within the Federal Reserve System (the Fed), is charged under United States law with overseeing the nation's open market operations (e.g., the Fed's buying and selling of United States Treas ...
(FOMC), the Federal Reserve's principal monetary policymaking body. Bullard is an accomplished economic theorist, whose fundamental contributions to monetary economics and policy analysis are highly regarded in the profession. 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

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

The St. Louis Fed supervises state-member banks and
bank holding companies A bank holding company is a company that controls one or more banks, but does not necessarily engage in banking itself. The compound bancorp (''banc''/''bank'' + '' corp ration') is often used to refer to these companies as well. United State ...
, 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, 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 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), 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 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.


Community development

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, 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 The unbanked are adults who do not have their own bank accounts. Along with the underbanked, they may rely on alternative financial services for their financial needs, where these are available. Causes Some reasons a person might not have a bank ...
and
underbanked The underbanked is a characteristic describing people or organizations who do not (or volunteer to not) have sufficient access to mainstream financial services and products typically offered by retail banks and thus often deprived of banking servic ...
. Publications include ''Bridges'', a quarterly publication for community organizations and leaders.


Economic research

The St. Louis Fed's research division, led by executive vice president Carlos Garriga, 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 Monetarism is a school of thought in monetary economics that emphasizes the role of governments in controlling the amount of money in circulation. Monetarist theory asserts that variations in the money supply have major influences on nati ...
. 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'', patterned after the Federal Reserve System's ''
Beige Book The Beige Book, more formally called the Summary of Commentary on Current Economic Conditions, is a report published by the United States Federal Reserve Board eight times a year. The report is published in advance of meetings of the Federal Open ...
'', 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'', a journal of national and international economic developments, particularly focusing on their monetary aspects; ''Economic Synopses'', short essays and reports on the economic issues of the day; and ''The Regional Economist'', 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) 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 p ...
, a database of hundreds of thousands
time series In mathematics, a time series is a series of data points indexed (or listed or graphed) in time order. Most commonly, a time series is a sequence taken at successive equally spaced points in time. Thus it is a sequence of discrete-time data. Ex ...
from national, international, private and public sources. 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 ''Insider'', previously named ''Business Insider'' (''BI''), is an American financial and business news website founded in 2007. Since 2015, a majority stake in ''Business Insider''s parent company Insider Inc. has been owned by the German publ ...
'',
Joe Weisenthal Joseph Weisenthal (born September 2, 1980) is an American journalist, television presenter and podcaster. He is the executive editor of news for Bloomberg's digital brands, the co-anchor of ''What’d You Miss?'' on Bloomberg Television, and co-h ...
called FRED "The most amazing economics website in the world." The bank also maintains the
Research Papers in Economics Research Papers in Economics (RePEc) is a collaborative effort of hundreds of volunteers in many countries to enhance the dissemination of research in economics. The heart of the project is a decentralized database of working papers, preprints, ...
(RePEc) database, a listing of economics authors and the Economics Departments, Institutes and Research Centers in the World (EDIRC) databases. Former
Palestinian Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...
Prime Minister
Salam Fayyad Salam Fayyad ( ar, سلام فياض, ; born 1951 or 12 April 1952) is a Jordanian-Palestinian politician and former Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority and Finance Minister. He was Finance Minister from June 2002 to November 2005 and ...
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 Econ Lowdown 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 Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...
and
interactive whiteboard An interactive whiteboard (IWB), also known as interactive board or smart board, is a large interactive display board in the form factor of a whiteboard. It can either be a standalone touchscreen computer used independently to perform task ...
versions of lesson plans. The economics topics covered include basic concepts such as
opportunity cost In microeconomic theory, the opportunity cost of a particular activity is the value or benefit given up by engaging in that activity, relative to engaging in an alternative activity. More effective it means if you chose one activity (for example ...
and
supply and demand In microeconomics, supply and demand is an economic model of price determination in a Market (economics), market. It postulates that, Ceteris paribus, holding all else equal, in a perfect competition, competitive market, the unit price for a ...
to more complex topics such as
comparative advantage In an economic model, agents have a comparative advantage over others in producing a particular good if they can produce that good at a lower relative opportunity cost or autarky price, i.e. at a lower relative marginal cost prior to trade. C ...
and
monetary policy Monetary policy is the policy adopted by the monetary authority of a nation to control either the interest rate payable for federal funds, very short-term borrowing (borrowing by banks from each other to meet their short-term needs) or the money s ...
. 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''. Another newsletter, ''Inside the Vault,'' was retired in 2015. Another publication, ''In Plain English,'' 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.


U.S. Treasury support

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 The Bureau of the Fiscal Service (Fiscal Service) is a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. The Fiscal Service replaced the Bureau of the Public Debt and the Financial Management Service effective October 7, 2012 by directive of Treasu ...
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.


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. 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 The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, (informally referred to as the Atlanta Fed and the Bank), is the sixth district of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks of the United States and is headquartered in midtown Atlanta, Georgia. The Atlanta Fed cover ...
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 Counterfeit money is currency produced without the legal sanction of a state or government, usually in a deliberate attempt to imitate that currency and so as to deceive its recipient. Producing or using counterfeit money is a form of fraud or fo ...
to the
United States Secret Service The United States Secret Service (USSS or Secret Service) is a federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security charged with conducting criminal investigations and protecting U.S. political leaders, their families, and ...
.


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 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.


Office of Minority and Women Inclusion

As with all Federal Reserve banks, the St. Louis Fed established an Office of Minority and Women Inclusion (OMWI) 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.


Past Leadership

When the Federal Reserve System was established in 1914, the
chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especiall ...
s of the regional banks were known as Governors. The position was renamed to President after the
Banking Act of 1935 The ''Banking Act of 1935'' passed on August 19, 1935 and was signed into law by the president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, on August 23. The Act changed the structure and power distribution in the Federal Reserve System that began with the '' Banking ...
.


See also

*
Federal Reserve Act 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 Pani ...
*
Federal Reserve Bank 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 ...
*
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Little Rock Branch The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Little Rock Branch is a branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis established in 1918. The Branch provided check processing operations until 2003, when these services were moved to the Memphis Branch. The ...
*
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Louisville Branch The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Louisville Branch is a branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis established in 1917. The branch is responsible for southern Indiana and central/western Kentucky. The branch is located in the PNC Tower i ...
* Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Memphis Branch * List of Federal Reserve branches * Structure of the Federal Reserve System


References


External links

*
FRED home pageMap of the DistrictGreat Depression Project''In Plain English''Dodd-Frank Regulatory Reform Rules roadmapTracking the Global EconomyThe Financial Crisis TimelineFOMC SpeakHistorical resources by and about the St. Louis Fed
including annual reports back to 1915.
Statements and Speeches of Presidents of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. LouisFederal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Centennial Web Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Federal Reserve Bank Of St Louis
St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
Buildings and structures in St. Louis Downtown St. Louis 1914 establishments in Missouri