In this paper, we consider the case for an intraday market for reserves. We discuss the separate roles of intraday and overnight reserves and argue that an intraday market could be organized in the same way as the overnight market. We present arguments for and against a market for intraday...

We study two designs for a liquidity-saving mechanism (LSM), a queuing arrangement used with an interbank settlement system. We consider an environment where banks are subjected to liquidity shocks. Banks must make the decision to send, queue, or delay their payments after observing a noisy...

A recent innovation in large-value payments systems has been the design and implementation of liquidity-saving mechanisms (LSMs), tools used in conjunction with real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems. LSMs give system participants, such as banks, an option not offered by RTGS alone: they can...

The Federal Reserve's Fedwire funds transfer service-the biggest large-value payments system in the United States-has long displayed a peak of activity in the late afternoon. Theory suggests that the concentration of late-afternoon Fedwire activity reflects coordination among participating banks...

We track 38,000 money market trades from execution to delivery and return to provide a first empirical analysis of settlement delays in financial markets. In line with predictions from recent models showing that financial claims are settled strategically, we document a tendency by lenders to...

The recent spread of ATM surcharges has sparked significant debate among consumers, policymakers, and ATM owners. Much of this debate has focused on the direct costs that surcharges impose on consumers. The use of ATM surcharges, however, also raises broader questions about ATM deployment,...

In July 2006, the Federal Reserve will end its provision of free daylight credit to government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), financial services corporations created by Congress to establish a secondary market in mortgages and other consumer loans. To meet their payments to investors, the GSEs...

An examination of the Federal Reserve's Fedwire Funds Transfer service reveals that the highest concentration of funds-transfer value occurs in the late afternoon. The authors attribute this activity peak to attempts by banks (and their customers) to coordinate payment timing more closely. By...

The swift growth of e-commerce and the Internet has led to the development of a new form of electronic funds transfer - the personal on-line payment - that uses web and e-mail technologies to initiate and confirm payments. This article describes this payment instrument and the trends that have...

Banks rely heavily on incoming payments from other banks to fund their own payments. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, destroyed facilities in Lower Manhattan, leaving some banks unable to send payments through the Federal Reserve's Fedwire payments system. As a result, many banks...