Banking Supervision Division Conducts Banker Visits

The St. Louis Fed's Banking Supervision Division recently began a banker visitation initiative focusing on nonregulatory issues. Its goal is to:

• assess the effectiveness of communications between the division and financial institutions, and
• obtain suggestions for improvement.

Harry Slingerland, the division's communications officer, began visiting financial institutions in early September. During the visits, Slingerland asks bank management how the institution currently receives information from the Fed. To date, Slingerland has found that most institutions use the St. Louis Fed's electronic distribution service (ED) to receive regulations, circulars and press releases. They also use the public web site, www.stlouisfed.org, to view a variety of other banking information.

Slingerland also assesses whether institutions are taking full advantage of new software and Internet tools. For example, institutions can:

• send and receive many regulatory and statistical files and reports electronically using Internet submission;
• manage their Federal Reserve accounts in real time and more easily comply with payments system risk policies by using FedLine® for the Web and Account Management Information; and
• view, manage and accurately estimate their reserve balances with ReserveCalc Internet software.

Finally, Slingerland checks to see if the institution is aware of and taking advantage of the Bank's credit programs, such as the seasonal credit program or the Fed's primary and secondary credit programs. For more information about the Bank's new visitation program, contact Harry Slingerland at (314) 444-8752, or 1-800-333-0810, ext. 44-8752.