The Friendly Philly Fed for Free!

The Friendly Philly Fed for Free!

This month, we visit the Federal Reserve System (the "Fed") beginning with the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

Most of the Federal Reserve Banks have a presence on the World Wide Web, and each has its highlights. At this writing, all but the Richmond, Kansas City, and San Francisco Feds have home pages, but keep watching as they all get on-line. You can enter the Fed system at the home page of any Reserve Bank and there will be links to all the others.

In its "Public Affairs Department" link, the Philly Fed offers a sample of the numerous consumer pamphlets it has produced over the years on a variety of consumer credit and banking topics. Hit the "General Information\Links to Other Federal Reserve Banks" button and you have a map of all 12 Fed Districts. Next stop: FRED.

The St. Louis Fed (click "8" on the map) is the home of the famous FRED database. FRED is a massive collection of Fed statistics spanning decades. Of interest to compliance professionals, the "Data files - index of historical data series available" link will take you to the "Daily/Weekly U.S. Financial Data" which is the home of historical "H-15" data. Not impressed? H-15 houses the interest rate indices used by most ARM lenders and FRED has all the index values for more than the 15 years necessary to assemble or audit an ARM program disclosure. If you've ever had to track down 15 years' worth of the "weekly average yield on U.S. Treasury securities adjusted to a constant maturity of xx years" for a program disclosure, you'll be glad you met FRED!

Back up and click "6" for the Atlanta Fed. The "Partners" software developed by the Atlanta Fed's Ron Zimmerman is destined to become a CRA >
Copyright © 1996 Compliance Action. Originally appeared in Compliance Action, Vol. 1, No. 8, 5/96