Search Results
Working Paper
Effects of Federal Reserve services on the efficiency of the system for collecting checks in the United States: 1915--30
This paper investigates whether the services of the Federal Reserve System improved the efficiency of the system in the United States for collecting checks relative to the efficiency of the system used by banks just prior to the formation of the Federal Reserve. There are two types of evidence that the Fed's services improved efficiency. First, the Reserve Banks quickly became major processors of interregional checks, even though banks could have continued to use the prior payments arrangements. Second, declines in the ratios of cash to total assets of banks can be attributed to the ...
Journal Article
Who uses electronic check products: a look at depository institutions
Approximately 42 billion checks were written and collected in the United States in 2000. The vast majority of noncash transactions continue to be settled with paper checks, which despite gains in efficiency and speed, still require costly and time-consuming sorting and transportation. An alternative-electronic check presentment-could save time and money. Yet, electronic services have been slow to take off, possibly because of the way the Federal Reserve prices them. If the pricing structure were revised, there might be more demand from banks for electronic services, and a higher level of ...
Working Paper
Non-parametric, unconditional quantile estimation for efficiency analysis with an application to Federal Reserve check processing operations
This paper examines the technical efficiency of U.S. Federal Reserve check processing offices over 1980?2003. We extend results from Park et al. (2000) and Daouia and Simar (2007) to develop an unconditional, hyperbolic, a-quantile estimator of efficiency. Our new estimator is fully non-parametric and robust with respect to outliers; when used to estimate distance to quantiles lying close to the full frontier, it is strongly consistent and converges at rate root-n, thus avoiding the curse of dimensionality that plagues data envelopment analysis (DEA) estimators. Our methods could be used by ...
Working Paper
A model of check exchange
The authors construct and simulate a model of check exchange to examine the incentives a bank (or a bank clearinghouse) has to engage in practices that limit access to its payment facilities, in particular delaying the availability of check payment. The potentially disadvantaged bank has the option of directly presenting checks to the first bank. The authors find that if the retail banking market is highly competitive, the first bank will not engage in such practices, but if the retail banking market is imperfectly competitive, it will find it advantageous to restrict access to its ...
Journal Article
Technology improvements enhance check adjustment services
Journal Article
The check float puzzle
Newsletter
Implementing the Check 21 Act: potential risks facing banks
The Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act (the Check 21 Act) was designed to facilitate technological innovation by accelerating the transition to electronic check processing. Yet, in adopting Check 21-related processing, banks must also appropriately identify and mitigate potential risks associated with this new federal law.