Financial Update Focus

The Atlanta Fed's Retail Payments Office (RPO) continually works with the payments industry to further improve the speed, safety and efficiency of payments, including numerous technology upgrades in response to the ever-changing payments environment. In a podcast, Cheryl Venable and Jim McKee of the RPO discuss the Fed's new Financial Services Strategic Plan for 2012 through 2016.

Banks in the Southeast, as well as across the nation, are in some ways still healing from the aftermath of the financial crisis. Brian Bowling, vice president in the Atlanta Fed's banking supervision and regulation division, discusses the general state of banking in the region.

In a podcast, Atlanta Fed staffers Ann Carpenter and Nancy Montoya discuss the chapter they coauthored in the new book Resilience and Opportunity: Lessons from the U.S. Gulf Coast after Katrina and Rita. Their discussion explores the role of social networks in rebuilding communities.

Companies gather a great deal of personal data about people, information that can be vulnerable to theft. Will Roberds, research economist and senior policy adviser at the Atlanta Fed, discusses data breaches and risk management in emerging payments and the concomitant risk of identity theft.

Rich Oliver, executive vice president at the Atlanta Fed, discusses the recent Board of Governors payments study. He says that although the study revealed no big surprises, it did confirm what experts had suspected: Americans now use their debit cards more than they write checks.

Michael Johnson, the Atlanta Fed's senior vice president of supervision and regulation, discusses the importance of communication between the banking industry and bank supervisors in these tumultuous times, as well as the new online Financial Update feature, "ViewPoint," a tool for communicating supervisory priorities and challenges as well as banking conditions in the Southeast.

Southeastern banks have experienced an eventful period and have recently endured significant challenges. Brian Bowling, vice president in the Atlanta Fed's banking supervision and regulation division, discusses the general state of banking in the region.

Brian Thompson, a banknote designer at the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, discusses the redesigned $100 note and the art of currency design.

Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart speaks about the importance of an apolitical environment to setting monetary policy and the role of regional input in policymaking.

Galina Alexeenko of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta's research department discusses trends in international capital flows in the wake of the recent financial crisis.