One Reserve Bank's Contribution

The Federal Reserve's day-to-day involvement in the payments system, as well as a focus on its future development, is carried out at individual Reserve Banks. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, for example, has recently made several contributions to improving the payments system:
	Check imaging pilots with the U.S. Treasury and U.S. Postal Service. Using high-speed processing equipment, we are capturing images of government checks and archiving them for the Treasury and the Post Office's use.
	Creation of a commercial check imaging service. Three of the four District offices--St. Louis, Little Rock and Memphis--have launched this new service.
	Collaboration with the National Automated Clearing House Association (NACHA) to increase the awareness and use of direct deposit and direct payment. On behalf of the Federal Reserve System, St. Louis Fed staff worked with NACHA to develop nation wide educational campaigns targeting financial institutions, corporations and the public.
	Participation in the government's Electronic Federal Tax Payments System initiative. Through leadership of the Federal Reserve's Treasury Tax and Loan Task Force and the joint Federal Reserve Treasury Software Work Group, the St. Louis Fed is continuing to support increased efficiencies in the collection of taxes from businesses.
	Development of an automated cash management system for the Treasury.
	Special projects that focus on emerging payments issues. The Bank's staff provides support for the Fed's Financial Services Policy Committee, which oversees the Federal Reserve's financial services activities and, in the Eighth District, monitors payments system developments, identifies product and Fed leadership opportunities, and educates our staff on new technologies.
	The fostering of economic research on payments issues. One example of these efforts was our sponsorship of a 1995 sympo- sium on anti-trust issues connected with payments systems. In 1996, St. Louis hosted a conference on alternative methods of measuring money, a continuing problem for policymakers in the wake of financial innovations over the past two decades.
Similar efforts are occurring at Reserve Banks around the country.