our economy is never again devastated by a financial collapse. the federal reserve has been granted, both in law and in political tradition, considerable independence and autonomy. that independence serves important public objectives. critically, it allows the federal open market committee to make monetary policy in the longer - term economic interests of the american people, rather than in the service of shortterm political imperatives. it also allows the federal reserve to make supervisory decisions based on the facts of each case and the need to preserve financial stability, not on the basis of political considerations. in the interest of maintaining public confidence and promoting economic and financial stability, we must continue to protect our independence. at the same time, in a democratic society like our own, institutional independence brings with it fundamental obligations of transparency, responsiveness, and accountability. the federal reserve is already one of the most transparent and accountable central banks in the world, providing voluminous information and explanation concerning all of its activities. however, i believe that we should be prepared to do even more, to become even more transparent. it is essential that the public have the information it needs to understand and be assured of the integrity of all our operations, including all aspects of our balance sheet and our financial controls. we will continue to work with the congress to ensure maximum transparency of america ’ s central bank, without compromising our ability to conduct policy in the public interest. these are just some of the challenges that we will all face in the coming months and years. i thank you for the many expressions of support i received during the confirmation process, for your hard work and dedication, and for your service to your country. i look forward to continuing to work with all of you to strengthen our economy and to make the federal reserve as effective as it can possibly be in advancing the economic wellbeing of all americans. thank you.

june. bis central bankers ’ speeches i believe this intention reflects the preference of most community bankers, who worry that more centralization of supervisory practice would lead to delays in getting answers to questions and decisions on applications. at the same time, members of the board do, from time to time, hear complaints from community bankers that supervisory practice may not always be consistent across reserve banks. to some degree, of course, this is an inevitable byproduct of an approach that leans toward bottom - up supervision. nonetheless, our staff at the board will continue to assess practices across all the reserve bank districts to promote overall consistency without micromanaging the supervision of individual banks. and i want to emphasize that, if community bankers believe that significant variation in certain practices or policies is having an unfair or deleterious effect on one or more of their banks, they should feel more than comfortable raising these concerns with board staff. we do not regard such observations as criticism of our examiners, but instead as opportunities to test, and possibly adjust, our policies to promote overall consistency. a third way in which our community bank supervision differs from that of other banks is the particular effort made to limit the length of examinations and the amount of time bank personnel must spend on them. community banks have much smaller balance sheets over which to amortize the resources they spend on regulatory and supervisory requirements. of late, we have increased off - site supervisory activities, which can reduce the burden on community bank personnel. for example, we can conduct some aspects of the loan review process off site for banks that maintain electronic loan records. while off - site loan review has burden - reducing benefits for both bankers and examiners, some bankers have expressed concern that increasing off - site supervisory activities could potentially reduce the ability of banks to have face - to - face discussions with examiners regarding asset quality or riskmanagement issues. accordingly, we remain flexible and will continue to work with community banks that may prefer their loan reviews to be conducted on site. more generally, the federal reserve has invested substantial resources in developing technological tools for examiners to improve the efficiency of both off - site and on - site supervisory activities. these measures should lead to greater consistency and more efficient, effective, and risk - focused examinations by better enabling staff to tailor the scope of examinations to the activities and risks of individual banks. the automation of various parts of the community bank examination process can also save examiners and bankers time, as a bank can submit requested pre - examination