This essay concerns how the Federal Reserve’s role as a payment services provider can best be aligned with its broad mission to foster the integrity, efficiency, and accessibility of the U.S. payments system. A recommended strategy involves specialization in providing services where the...

In Scott Freeman’s (1996) model, payment system arrangements based on intermediated debt that is settled with money achieve higher welfare than does direct money payment. In a simplified version of Freeman’s model, welfare can be further improved and efficiency achieved by a monetary...

2000 Annual Report Essay

This article concerns the potential relevance of information technology to three aspects of central banking: setting the objectives of monetary policy, ensuring the integrity and security of financial system infrastructure, and maintaining the transparency of decision-making. Regarding integrity...

Two policies toward payments-system risk are common, but superficially appear to be contradictory. One policy is to restrict the exposure to risk generated by one participant to other participants who are, by one measure or another, directly concerned with the risky participant. The other policy...