Effective communication is also crucial to ensuring that the Federal Reserve remains accountable, but measures that affect the ability of policymakers to make decisions about monetary policy free of short-term political pressure, in the name of transparency, should be avoided. The Federal Reserve ranks among the most transparent central banks. We publish a summary of our balance sheet every week.
Our financial statements are audited annually by an outside auditor and made public. Every security we hold is listed on the website of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. And, in conformance with the Dodd-Frank Act, transaction-level data on all of our lending – including the identity of borrowers and the amounts borrowed – are published with a two-year lag.