For these assessments, we augment input from our research departments with critical information about local economic conditions supplied by our boards of directors, regional advisory councils and conversations with local stakeholders. You may know that one of my councils, the Upstate New York Regional Advisory Board, is designed specifically to provide me with timely information from this area. In this way, decisions by the FOMC are continually informed by views gathered from all parts of the country, including Upstate New York. One thing that makes my job even more interesting is that New York has some roles unique within the Fed. Let me tell you about some of them. We, alone, implement monetary policy. At the direction of the FOMC, we buy and sell Treasury securities. We are also the eyes and ears of the Fed on Wall Street, and we supervise many of the largest financial institutions in  BIS Review 141/2010  1  the country. We operate Fedwire® – the conduit for large money transfers between banks. And, we provide banking services to the U.S. Treasury, and central banks and governments from around the world. Finally, I must mention that the New York Fed’s district could be the most diverse in the System: ranging from the urban density of Manhattan to the forested sparseness of the northern Adirondacks, to the Caribbean islands of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. All in all, there is a lot to keep my colleagues and me quite busy – even in normal times.
Before the crisis, the National Bank had repeatedly drawn attention to the high leverage of the big banks and warned that their ability to absorb losses was not adequate. These caveats did not result in any voluntary change in behaviour. For this reason, it is essential that our set of preventative instruments for financial stability be improved in three areas; namely, improved access to information, closer involvement in regulatory procedures with regard to financial stability issues, and direct macroprudential decision-making powers. I would now like to take a closer look at these. First, it is crucial that we have all the necessary information quickly to hand in order to identify the build-up of risks in the financial system at an early stage. While the SNB’s statutory authority to compile statistical data is both necessary and helpful, the latest crisis clearly demonstrated that the National Bank must be able to request additional information. With this I mean, for example, quantitative, non-standardised data on banks’ risk exposure. BIS Review 173/2010  1  Unlike FINMA, Switzerland’s financial market supervisory authority, the SNB’s stance is primarily a macroeconomic or systemic one. This is why we must be able to act independently in certain situations when gathering information. At the same time, we also want to keep our access to information to an absolute minimum and avoid a duplication of activities with FINMA. Second, clarification of the SNB’s participation rights and obligations is needed in the area of regulation essential for financial stability.