All of the Federal Reserve's wire and ACH systems go down

Published at: Feb. 24, 2021

Updated 8:20 pm UTC: This article has been updated to reflect that all Federal Reserve Bank Services with the exception of Account Services are now back online.

Nearly all of the services available through the Federal Reserve's online portal went down for more than an hour today. 

According to the Federal Reserve Bank Services website, the bank is currently experiencing a disruption in its Check 21, Check Adjustments, FedLine Advantage, FedLine Command, FedLine Direct and FedLine Web services, which started at 6:18 pm UTC today. Its FedACH, Central Bank, FedCash, Fedwire Funds, Fedwire Securities and National Settlement services went offline at the same time but were restored within two hours.

In addition, most of the access solutions that the Fed offers — FedLine Advantage, FedLine Command, FedLine Direct, FedLine Web and FedMail — were disrupted and later restored, with only FedLine Advantage offline at the time of publication. The FedMail system, which stayed online through the service disruption, allows the central bank to provide updates on its services to participating organizations.

Washington Post reporter Rachel Leah Siegel reportedly received an alert from the Fed saying its staff was "currently investigating a disruption to multiple services" and would "continue to provide updates as soon as they are available."

According to Siegel, Jim Strader from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond said:

"A Federal Reserve operational error resulted in disruption of service in several business lines. We are restoring services and are communicating with all Federal Reserve Financial Services customers about the status of operations."

Set up by the central bank, FedACH handles Social Security benefits, tax refunds and many payroll direct deposits for federal employees, while Fedwire is a real-time gross settlement funds transfer system between accredited institutions. Some in the crypto space have pointed out the blockchain industry already seemingly has the infrastructure to enable similar payments.

At the time of publication, the system outage doesn't appear to have had much impact on cryptocurrencies or fiat. Bloomberg's ICE Dollar Index, which measures the value of the U.S. dollar against six major currencies, stayed above 90 points this afternoon. The price of Bitcoin (BTC) is currently $48,985, having risen more than 7% in the last 24 hours.

Tags
Regulation
United States
Us Government
Federal Reserve
Related Posts
New bill proposes US Treasury to have full authority over fiat stablecoins
A new bill introduced by United States Representative Don Beyer of Virginia has proposed a far-reaching regulatory and legal framework for digital assets across the board. Entitled "The Digital Asset Market Structure and Investor Protection Act of 2021," the bill touches on virtually all the important gray areas that continue to exist regarding cryptocurrencies in the U.S. context. One of its primary goals is to establish statutory definitions for digital assets and digital asset securities, bringing the former under the purview of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the latter under that of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). …
Regulation / July 30, 2021
Pomp says US digital dollar needs to happen now
Recent comments from Jerome Powell, the chairman of the United States Federal Reserve, show the American government is not especially concerned with speed when it comes to developing a central bank digital currency, or CBDC. In contrast, Morgan Creek Digital co-founder Anthony Pompliano argues that time is of the essence. "They're talking about, like, maybe we'll build one in the next couple of years," Pompliano said of Powell's recent comments on CBDCs. "This is not a next-couple-of-years thing," Pomp said Monday on an episode of his YouTube show Lunch Money. "This is a right-now thing, and if they don't act, …
Regulation / Oct. 20, 2020
Ripple's Garlinghouse forecasts further loss of U.S. dollar value
After what has been a crazy year in almost every sense of the word, businesses are left wondering how to proceed, Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse said. "The pandemic is throwing so many playbooks out the window," he posited in an Aug. 28 tweet. "Yesterday's action flies in the face of decades of precedent," he said, pointing toward an Aug. 27 article from the Wall Street Journal on the U.S. Federal Reserve choosing to keep interest rates low at the possible expense of higher inflation. "Signs point to further dollar debasement in the near term (leading to further diversification of …
Regulation / Aug. 29, 2020
Fed chair says it's up to Congress to bring a digital dollar to market
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said 2021 will likely have the central bank engaging with the public and lawmakers regarding the digital dollar. In a House Financial Services Committee hearing today, Powell responded to questions from Rep. Patrick McHenry, who said the digital dollar would likely face national and economic security issues for the United States. Powell said there were many concerns surrounding the project and the Fed intended to reach out to the public. “This is going to be the year in which we engage with the public pretty actively, including some public events that we’re working on,” he …
Regulation / Feb. 24, 2021
Crypto owners banned from working on US Government crypto policies
US government officials who privately own cryptocurrencies are now banned from working on regulations and policies that could affect the value of digital assets. A new advisory notice released by the US Office of Government Ethics (OGE) on Tuesday stated that the de minimis exemption — which allows for the owners of securities who hold an amount below a certain threshold to work on policy related to that security — is universally inapplicable when it comes to cryptocurrencies and stablecoins. “As a result, an employee who holds any amount of a cryptocurrency or stablecoin may not participate in a particular …
Blockchain / July 7, 2022