A few questions for Fed Chairman Yellen regarding the attempted transfer of $1 billion from the Bangladeshi central bank’s account at the New York Fed, in which the thieves initially got away with about $100 million.
- Why did it take so long for this incident to get reported? Was Congress or were any international organizations (IMF, BIS) informed?
- What exactly happened on the New York Fed end? Why did no one from the New York Fed contact the Bangladeshi central bank to check to see if these withdrawals were legitimate?
- What kind of checks and balances are there for withdrawal requests from central banks? For withdrawal requests from reserves held by commercial banks?
- Has anything like this happened before this incident or since this incident?
- Are any safeguards being put in place to ensure that this does not happen again?
- What kind of safeguards are in place to ensure that the $2 trillion in commercial bank reserves held at the Fed are not fraudulently disbursed?
- Will the Fed be providing a report to Congress once this entire situation is finally resolved?
- Given the Fed’s seeming screw-up in this case and its reluctance to provide any information about what happened, why should the Fed continue to remain exempt from a full audit of its operations?