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Working Paper 79-l

DETERMINANTS OF CORRESPONDENT BANKING RELATIONSHIPS
WITH THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM
Bruce J. Summers
Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
John P. Segala
University of Southern California

March 1979"

*Revised November 1979

The views expressed here are solely those of the
authors and do not necessarily reflect the views
of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.

Determinants of Correspondent Banking Relationships
with the Federal Reserve System

I.

INTRODUCTION

In addition to its central banking responsibilities, the Federal
Reserve System also plays an important role in correspondent ba.nking. The
twelve Federal Reserve banks supply services, including check collection,
wire transfer of funds, provision of currency and coin, and safekeeping of
securities, to thousands of financial institutions. It is estimated that
the operating cost of providing such services exceeded $400 million in 1978,
which is more than two-thirds of total Federal Reserve operating expenses
for the year.1
Historically, the System has offered its services to member banks
free of explicit charge, with access to these services being largely restricted to member banks.

The primary intent of Federal Reserve pricing and

access policy has been to make System services cost-free benefits available
directly only through membership.

The availability of such services to mem-

ber banks is considered a partial offset to the opportunity cost of holding
nonearning reserve balances with the Federal Reserve. Legislation now being
considered by Congress would require full cost pricing of and open access to
System services by all depository institutions. Changes such as these would
increase competition between commercial correspondent banks and the Federal
Reserve, since respondent banks would be free to choose a supplier of services
primarily on the basis of price and quality rather than Federal Reserve membership status.

Shifts in the existing pattern of demand for correspondent banking

services would likely result from increased competition.
The factors explaining demand for correspondent services supplied by
commercial banks have been investigated [4,6], but lack of data has prevented
a study of correspondent relationships with Federal Reserve banks.

Given the

-2-

Federal Reserve's substantial involvement in correspondent banking, and in
view of the movement toward more competition in correspondent banking, a
study of bank demand for System services is in order. More specifically, it
would be useful to know how individual services offered by the Federal Reserve
benefit their users. Also of interest are the characteristics of banks that
use System services. This information would help financial institutions,
including Federal Reserve banks, estimate changes in demand for their services
in a more competitive correspondent banking environment.
This paper is a study of the use of Federal Reserve System services
by member and nonmember banks in the five Fifth Federal Reserve District
.

states.L

Section II of the article describes the data base, defines the vari-

ables used in empirical tests conducted in subsequent sections, and outlines
the method used in selecting the regression models.

The benefits from use of

System services, measured by the effect such use has on compensating balances
held with private correspondent banks, is examined in Section III. A two-stage
decision framework is introduced in Section IV to identify banks that use System
versus private correspondent services. This framework is extended in Section V
to explain the volume of services consumed. The main conclusions are summarized
in Section VI.

II.

REVIEW OF DATA BASE AND REGRESSION METHODS

The data base is constructed around 759 commercial banks operating in
the five states on June 30, 1977 that were not absorbed through merger over the
period ending in January 1978. Data for each bank are of three basic types:
1) financial data; 2) structure data, e.g., holding company status, location,
etc.; and 3) Federal Reserve service use data.
All financial data are taken from the June 30, 1977 Report of Conditiono3
Financial variables are defined as follows (dependent variables are marked by *>:
TD = total deposits, in thousands of dollars;
CI/TL = ratio of commercial and industrial loans to total loans;

-j-

TL/TD = ratio of total loans to total deposits;
FFS/TD = ratio of Federal funds sold to total deposits;
IPCDD/TD = ratio of demand deposits of individuals, partnerships, and
corporations to total deposits;
DF/TD* = ratio of demand balances due from domestic commercial banks
to.total deposits; and
CIPDF/TD* = ratio of cash items in process of collection plus demand
balances due from domestic commercial banks to total
deposits.
Bank structure data are taken from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
structure file for June 30, 1977. All the variables are binary variables and
are defined as follows:
BHC = 1 if the bank is holding company affiliated, 0 otherwise;
SMSA = 1 if the bank is located in a Standard Metropolitan Statistical
Area, 0 otherwise;
MN=

1 if the bank is a member of the Federal Reserve System, 0 otherwise;

MD=

1 if the bank is located in Maryland, 0 otherwise;

NC = 1 if the bank is located in North Carolina, 0 otherwise;
SC = 1 if the bank is located in South Carolina, 0 otherwise; and
VA = 1 if the bank is located in Virginia, 0 otherwise.
Data on commercial bank use of System services are from a special survey
of Federal Reserve offices in the Fifth District conducted during the two month
period December 19774anuary 1978. Services included in the survey are:

check

collection; delivery of currency and coin; safekeeping of U.S. Government,
Federal agency, municipal, and private securities; wire transfer of funds; and
borrowing through the discount window.

Except for check collection, direct use

of these five services is limited to member banks.

In the case of check collec-

tion, nonmember banks have direct deposit privileges for Regional Check Processing Center (RCPC) area clearing on the same terms as do member banks, except that
settlement must be made through a member bank's reserve account. In the Fifth
District, state boundaries correspond closely to RCPC area boundaries, an
arrangement that gives nonmember banks clearing privileges for most items drawn

-4-

on banks in their state.

Service use variables are defined as follows

(dependent.variables are marked by *):

ccv* = daily average volume of regular checks cleared during a one
month sample period by member and nonmember banks using the
service (excludes government checks, postal money orders,
and private checks shipped directly to Federal Reserve offices
outside the Fifth District);

ecu* = 1 if the bank direct deposits checks for clearing with the
Federal Reserve, 0 otherwise;
MT=

1 if the bank receives currency and coin delivery, 0 otherwise;

ss = 1 if the bank has securities on account with the Federal Reserve
for safekeeping, 0 otherwise;
volume of wire transfers initiated during a one month sample
period by member banks using the service;

tJTv*

=

m*

= 1 if the member bank initiates wire transfers of funds using
the Federal Reserve wire service, 0 otherwise, and

DWI* = .index of discount window use by member banks during 1977,
defined as the number of reserve periods during which the bank
borrowed times borrowings as a percent of required reseves
across reseme periods during which borrowing occurred.
Table 1 is a summary of the number of member and nonmember banks that actually
use these services. The table gives the number of observations for variables
entering the regressions presented below.
The regression equations discussed in the following two sections are
presented in tables that list explanatory variables across the top. All of the
explanatory variables enter the pooled data equations in Table 2.

In the other

equations, coefficients are estimated for only some of the regressors listed.
These equations were chosen on the basis of a forward selection procedure using
-2
all of the theoretically reasonable regressors, with R as the choice criterion
[5, p. 1251. To check the assumption that the regression residuals have a
common variance and are not systematically influenced by bank size, Glejser
regressions were run for each equation having TD as an independent variable
15, p. 2621.

These tests indicate that there are no problems with heteroscedas-

ticity due to size.
Linear, log-linear, and log-log forms were tested, and the form giving

-5the best fit appears in the tables.5

The regressions in Section IY are of the

dummy dependent variable type and are estimated using the maximum-likelihood
method under the assumption that the functional form relating the binomial
probabilities to the explanatory variables is logistic. The logit model is
discussed in more detail later.

III. MEASURING TEE BENEFITS FROM USING
FEDERAL RESERVE SERVICES
The services offered by Federal Reserve banks are to varying degrees
substitutes for similar services available through the private correspondent
banking system.6 Whereas System services are provided without explicit charge,
services obtained from private correspondents carry a cost, usually in the form
of a compensating balance requirement. Use of Federal Reserve services is beneficial if it allows banks to reduce due from compensating balances. Compensating
balance requirements are determined by factors in addition to correspondent services, however.
Empricial work dealing with the determinants of correspondent balances
is limited. Lawrence and Lougee 143 estimate a linear equation with the dollar
amount of due from balances on the left hand side using 1966 Call Report data for
262 banks less than $100 million in asset size and located in three western states.
Their results indicate that bank size and membership status are the dominant factors influencing the dollar amount of due from balances held; due from balances
are positively related to size but are lower for member banks. Meinster and
Mohindru [6J analyze the ratio of correspondent balances to total deposits using
daily average financial data for June 1970 for a sample of 65 independent banks
less than $400 million in deposit size and located in three northeastern states.
Their results support the hypothesis that the proportion of correspondent balances
held is influenced primarily by liquidity needs and very little by the use of
correspondent services. Neither study, however, takes into account possible differences between book balances and collected balances.7

-6Table 2 contains the results of six regression equations designed to
test the influence of certain service, financial, and bank structure variables
on the ratios of 1) due from correspondent balances to total deposits for member banks using the Federal Reserve System check collection service and 2) cash
items in process of collection plus due from balances to total deposits for all
member banks.

The independent variables summarize factors found to be important

determinants of correspondent .balances in previous studies. The observations in
equation 2.1, which has DF/TD as a dependent variable, are limited to member banks
clearing checks directly through Reserve banks. This restriction is made in order
to allow for differences in accounting procedures between the Federal Reserve and
private correspondents that make it difficult to differentiate book balances from
collected balances.

Since all the banks entering equation 2.1 clear checks direct-

ly through the Federal Reserve, this accounting problem is minimized, although it
is not necessarily completely avoided since some banks clear checks through both
Federal Reserve banks and commercial correspondent banks. Nonetheless, the dependent variable DF/TD provides the best available measure of collected due from balances to total deposits for this group of member banks. Very few banks clear
checks through the System but do not use other Federal Reserve services. This
limits degrees of freedom and consequently restricts estimation of DF/TD to one
pooled data equation.
The first five regressors listed in Table 2 represent individual Federal
Reserve System services. These services can be thought of as substitutes for
similar services offered by private correspondent banks.

It is expected that use

of these services acts to reduce the proportion of due from balances held with
private correspondents. The check clearing variable is not included in equation
2.1 since all of the banks use the service; if check clearing does influence the
proportion of due from balances held, the effect is captured in the constant term.
The MT, SS, and WTV variables enter equation 2.1 with the expected negative signs
but with low t-statistics.

Since their use is not significant in allowing member
.

-

7 -

banks to reduce compensating balances, the three services can be described
as poor substitutes for-similar services obtained through private correspondent banks.

The discount window, unexpectedly, is positively related to

the due from ratio.
The commercial and industrial loan to total loan variable is a
proxy for the need for loan participations, a service available from
correspondent banks but not the Federal Reserve. As the proportion of large
loans, e.g., business loans, grows relative to total loans, the need for
loan participations will increase. The CI/TL proxy variable, therefore,
is expected to contribute to higher due from ratios. The next independent
variable, the proportion of total loans to total deposits, is included as a
proxy for bank liquidity. Higher TL/TD ratios, which are usually considered
to be indicative of lower liquidity, are expected to increase the need for
correspondent bank balances. Both the loan participation and liquidity requirement proxies have positive signs, but only the latter is significantly
different from zero.
The last independent variables test for bank structure effects.
The bank holding company dummy variable tests the hypothesis that holding
company affiliation introduces economies of scale, for example, through centralized management of cash positions, that allow affiliated banks to minimize
due from balances compared to independent banks. Likewise, location in a
metropolitan area, represented by the SMSA dummy variable, can be thought of as
working to reduce due from balances. Respondent banks located in SMSA's are
nearer major correspondents than country banks, proximity acting to reduce the
cost of providing an equivalent amount of services to an urban as compared to a
more distant country respondent bank.

The SMSA coefficient does not have the

expected sign but is not significantly different from zero. The BHC coefficient
has the expected negative sign and is significant at the .Ol level.
Equations 2.2 - 2.6 have as their dependent variable a ratio with the
sum of cash items in process of collection and due from balances in the numerator

and total deposits in the denominator. This specification allows inclusion
of member banks that clear checks with private correspondents as part of the
data base, since adding cash items in process to due from balances holds constant any differences in accounting treatment of these items by private correspondents and Federal Reserve banks.

It should be noted that the dependent

variable CIPDF/TD accurately reflects differences in compensating balances due
to service use only if the member banks using System check clearing services
do not themselves act as correspondents, Otherwise, their cash items in process would be inflated with the clearings of other banks.

Comparison of the

mean values of the dependent variables for the stratified regressions suggests
that the assumption that member banks do not act as correspondents is reasonable only in the-three smallest size groups. The dummy variable CCU is added
to these equations to measure the effects of use of the Federal Reserve check
clearing service on member bank CIPC plus due from to total deposit ratios.
The check collection variable enters equation 2.2, the pooled data
regression, with a negative sign at the .lO level of significance. This
indicates that use of the Federal Reserve check clearing service allows member
banks to reduce compensating balances. The stratified regressions indicate
that use of the System check collection service results in significantly reduced CIPDF/TD ratios only for member banks in the $25-50 million deposit size
range. The CCU coefficient in equation 2.4 indicates that banks in the $25-50
million deposit size range hold a combination of cash items in process and due
from balances to total deposits that is 1.36 percentage points less than member
bank nonusers of the check clearing service. The CCU variable enters equation
2.6 for the largest size group at the .lO level of significance but with a positive coefficient. This is a reasonable result given the size of the banks involved,
indicating that large member banks using the System check clearing service act as
correspondent clearing banks.

The SMSA variable enters equations 2.2, 2.3, and

2.6 significantly and with positive sign, lending support to the idea that

-9metropolitan area banks have a greater dollar volume of check clearings than
do country banks.
These results indicate that liquidity needs and holding company
affiliation are more important determinants of due from balances held with
correspondents than are Federal Reserve services. Nonetheless, the System
check clearing service is a significant factor allowing user banks to
economize on correspondent balances. The evidence also suggests

that some

member banks may be able to hold lower compensating balances by using
Federal Reserve money transfer, security safekeeping, and wire transfer
services. It is important to note that a substantial amount of the variation in the two dependent variables is not explained by the regressions.
Other factors need to be considered in the search for a more complete understanding of correspondent balances.

IV. CEARACTERISTICS OF BANKS USING
FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM SERVICES
Although Federal Reserve services appear to be only marginally
important in allowing banks to reduce correspondent balances, it is nonetheless true that many member banks use them. These user banks may have
common characteristics that explain why they establish correspondent relationships with the Federal Reserve. These characteristics are the nonprice factors underlying demand for System services. If the Federal
Reserve begins to explicitly charge for its services, knowledge of these
factors would help identify banks that would be likely to shift to alternative sources of correspondent services.
Commercial banks face two basic decisions regarding use of correspondent services: first, whether to obtain services from Federal Reserve
banks or private correspondent banks and second, how intensively to use such
services. Thus, a two-stage decision framework is useful for analyzing bank
8
service use.

With regard to the first decision, previous studies by Gilbert

Ill, Greenbaum 121, and Summers [7] show that relatively few banks have made

- 10 -

the decision to use Federal Reserve System services. Gilbert [l] has advanced
the hypothesis that the System's procedural and operating standards act as
administrative deterrents to service use, while Summers [7] has suggested that
the availability of System services is geographically uneven, leading to greater
use among some groups of banks than others. These hypotheses are tested for two
Federal Reserve services, check collection and wire transfer of funds.
Identifying the characteristics of banks that use Federal Reserve
System services can be actiomplishedby estimating equations with dummy dependent
variables, where the outcome 1 is associated with use and the outcome 0 is
associated with nonuse.

Binary choice models are presented in Table 3 for users

and nonusers of System check clearing and wire transfer services. The coefficients in the models are estimated using the maximum-likelihood method under
the assumption of a logistic probability distribution [5, p. 1621. The coefficients indicate the direction and size of the effect of the independent
variables in determining selection probabilities for the sample observations.
Estimated probabilities greater than .50 lead to selection of the dummy dependent
variable 1, while probabilities less than .50 lead to selection of the variable 0.
Total deposit and bank holding company variables are included to test
Gilbert's administrative capacity hypothesis. Bank size (total deposits) is
hypothesized to be positively related to service use, since larger banks have
greater administrative capacity and therefore greater ability to directly
manage use of System services than do smaller banks.

Bank holding company

affiliation is expected to positively influence the likelihood of service use
since BHC affiliates can draw on the administrative capacity of their parent to
take advantage of System services. SMSA and state dummy variables are included
as tests of Summers' proposition that availability of Federal Reserve services
may be geographically uneven. Location in an SMSA should positively influence
the decision to use Federal Reserve services if metropolitan location makes
physical access to Federal Reserve processing centers and transportation relay
points easier compared to rural location. The state dummy variables are in-

- 11 tended to capture regionally unique influences that are difficult to measure
directly, e.g., the effects of natural geographic barriers and transportation
systems on availability of System services. An additional variable, the ratio
of IPC demand deposits to total deposits, is included to test whether banks
with higher proportions of demand deposits, and thus greater transaction account
servicing requirements, prefer to establish direct contact with the Federal
Reserve. The MN dummy is included in equation 3.1 since both member and nonmember banks are eligible to use System check clearing services.
The CCU equation has a negative and highly significant constant term,
indicating that the majority of banks do not use the System check clearing
service. The variable IPCDD/TD does not make any contribution to the estimate,
while bank size, holding company affiliation and metropolitan location all
significantly increase the probability of using the check clearing service.
Bank location in North Carolina and South Carolina also significantly increase
this probability, while location in Virginia decreases the probability when
compared to the control state, West Virginia. The MN dummy is positive and
significant, indicating greater probability of use by member banks.
There are some interesting contrasts between the results for the CCU
and WTU equations. First, the constant term in the WTU equation is positive
and significant, indicating that the majority of member banks use System wire
transfer services. Unlike equation 3.1, the BHC variable does not enter
the WTU equation. Moreover, the influence of the SMSA variable is not as
significant. The importance of bank location by state also differs between the
two equations, the t-statistics for the state dummies not being nearly as great
for WTU as for KU.

Bank size, however, similarly affects System check collec-

tion and funds transfer users.

In general, it appears that the administrative

capacity needed to manage use of the wire transfer service, and the importance
of geographic location on its availability, are not nearly as great as for check
collection.

- 12 V.

FACTORS EXPLAINING THE VOLUME OF
SERVICES USED

If a major shift in correspondent relationships away from Federal
Reserve banks were to occur as a result of new pricing policies, then it
would be useful if private correspondents were able to anticipate changes
in the quantity of their services demanded. Regression equations that
explain volume of Federal Reserve check collection, wire transfer and discount window services used are presented in Table 4.

The first two equations

are estimated in log-log form and have daily average volume of the number of
checks cleared and monthly volume of the number of wire transfers initiated,
respectively, as dependent variables. They are similarly structured and can be
treated together.
It is hypothesized that the higher the ratio of private demand deposits
to total deposits (IPCDD/TD), the greater will be a bank's volume of check
clearing and wire transfer activity. It is also natural to expect a strong
positive relationship between bank size (TD) and the volume of checks cleared
and wire transfers initiated. The IPC demand deposit ratio and deposit size
enter equation 4.1 with the expected signs and both are significant at the .Ol
level. The coefficients show that these variables have a nonproportional
relationship to check volume:

CCV increases more than proportionally with

IPCDD/TD and less than proportionally with TD.
The IPCDD/TD and TD variables also enter equation 4.2 significantly and
with positive signs. Again, the coefficients show a nonproportional relationship
to the dependent variable: WTV increases less than proportionally with IPCDD/TD
and TD.

The finding

that volume of Federal Reserve services consumed is relatively

greater for smaller compared to larger banks is consistent with results reported
by Hume and Russell [3] for banks in the New York Federal Reserve District. An
implication of this is that the introduction of full cost pricing for Federal
Reserve services will tend to raise small bank expense ratios more than large
bank expense ratios, at least insofar as check collection and wire transfer oper-

- 13 -

tions are concerned.
Bank holding company affiliation should have a positive affect on
the volume of clearings and transfers if holding company banks are more aggressive than independent banks in seeking out demand accounts. It is also reasonable to expect that urban banks have greater clearings and a greater need to
utilize wire transfers than country banks due to more financial activity in
urban compared to rural areas, leading to the expectation that the SMSA variable should also be significant and positive. Both variables enter equations
4.1 and 4.2 positively and at leastat the .05 level of significance.
The dependent variable CCV in equation 4.1 is observed for both
member and nonm&ber bank users of the check clearing service. The dummy variable MN, therefore, measures differences due to membership status. On the
surface, it is expected that the MN coefficient will be positive since member
banks have more direct access to the System check clearing service and have had
9
many more years to develop experience with it.

The MN dummy, however, enters

equation 4.1 with a negative coefficient that is significant at the .20 level.
This implies that nonmember banks to some extent use the Federal Reserve's
check clearing facilties more intensively than do member banks, even though
they are only permitted to clear checks drawn on banks located in RCPC areas
and must settle through member bank reserve accounts. Not only do nonmember
banks have access

to RCPC clearing services without having to bear the "burden"

of membership, they seem to take greater advantage of the service than do members of the Federal Reserve.

Nonmember access to RCPC's is an institutional

arrangement that likely exacerbates the System's membership problem.
The ratio of Federal funds sold to total deposits is tested under
the assumption that active participation in the short-term funds market leads
to greater bank demand for electronic interbank transfer services. A positive
coefficient is expected for l?FS/TD,but the variable does not prove to be a
significant factor explaining wire transfer volume and therefore does not enter
equation 4.2.

Equation 4.3 has as its dependent variable DWI, an index of discount
window use by member banks that actually borrowed during 1977. All of the
variables listed in Table 4 except the member bank dummy are tested in
equation 4.3.

Bank size is expected to be positively related to borrowing from

the Federal Reserve since this variable is characteristic of more aggressive
banking behavior. The ratio of Federal funds sold to total deposits is expected
to be negatively related to DWI.

A higher ratio of private demand deposits to

total deposits might be taken as an index of greater funds variability giving
rise to higher liquidity requirements and possible greater borrowing. Likewise,
location in an urban area might lead to greater deposit variability and consequently
greater borrowing to adjust reserve positions. Finally, the BHC dummy is included
to test whether holding company affiliation leads to more active use of the discount window.

There is a theory that holding companies avoid Federal Reserve sur-

veillance of discount window borrowing by spreading their use of the facility
among affiliates that are System members.

If true, this would imply a positive

and significant coefficient for the BHC variable. The results for the DWI equation are disappointing. The constant and the bank size variable together explain
only 4 percent of the variation in the dependent variable. Use of the discount
facility, therefore, seems to depend very little on the financial characteristics
tested or on structure characteristics such as location and holding company status.

VI.

CONCLUSIONS

The empirical evidence presented here indicates that Federal Reserve
System check clearing, wire transfer, and discount window services allow some
member banks to economize on compensating balances held with private correspondent
banks. The potential for reducing costs that is associated with use of these
services appears limited, however.

Strong inverse relationships between use of

individual System services and the proportion of due from balances held were not
found, suggesting that these services are not perfect substitutes for those offered
by private correspondent banks.

- 15 -

The probability that a bank will decide to use Federal Reserve check
clearing and wire transfer services is positively related to its administrative
capacity.to manage the services and its geographic proximity to those services.
Small size, lack of holding company backup, and distance from Federal Reserve
offices are greater deterrents to the use of the check clearing than to use of
the wire transfer service. One implication of this is that Federal Reserve banks
are more competitive offering services that do not involve bulk processing and
that do not require direct contact with user banks.
Once a bank makes the decision to use Federal Reserve services, the
volume of services demanded is influenced by a number of factors. The number
of checks cleared and wire transfers initiated increases with bank size, the
ratio of private demand deposits to total deposits, holding company affiliation,
and urban location; The volume of services consumed is relatively greater for
smaller compared to larger banks.

For this reason, introduction of full cost

pricing of Federal Reserve services would raise expense ratios at smaller user
banks more than at large use banks.

The unexpected result is obtained that non-

member banks using the Federal Reserve check clearing service do so more intensively than do members, even though nonmembers' access to Reserve bank clearing
facilities is restricted. Federal Reserve regulations allowing nonmembers access
to RCPC clearing, therefore, probably act to make the problem of declining membership worse than it would otherwise be.
It should be kept in mind that the results of this study are specific
to commercial banks in the Fifth Federal Reserve District. Generalization based
on the results should be done carefully. The approach to data collection and
analysis followed here, however, might be a useful guide to further research.
Indeed, the findings suggest that analysis of current patterns of demand for
Federal Reserve System services can provide information useful to planning for the
adjustment to a more competitive correspondent banking system.

Footnotes

1.

This cost estimate is from the Federal Reserve Board's Proposal for
Pricing.of Federal Reserve Check Collection and Automated Clearing
and Settlement Services, dated November 17, 1978.

2.

The five states are Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia
and West Virginia.

3.

The Call Report is used inasmuch as it is the only source of comparable
balance sheet information for member and nonmember banks. While single
day financial data are not as desirable as data based on daily averages,
it is reasonable to assume that deviations between daily average figures
and Call Report figures are constant for member and nonmember banks.
Moreover, some elements of the balance sheet, such as bank loan portfolios, are not likely to change dramatically in response to official
reporting requirements. One balance sheet category, cash assets, may be
subject to short-run variation. Tests have shown, however, that data
taken from the Call Report are generally representative of the behavior
of cash assets over monthly periods prior to the mid-year call date [7].

4.

This index is designed to take into account both the frequency and degree
of borrowing. There were fifty-two reserve periods in 1977. Hypothetically, if a bank borrowed 100 percent of its average required reserve for
every reserve period, its index would equal 52.
Conversely, banks that
did not borrow at all have an index number of zero.

5.

Natural logs are used throughout the article.

6.

See [8] for a comparison of Federal Reserve services and services provided
through the private correspondent banking system.

7.

Private correspondent banks often grant immediate book credit for cash
items received for clearing, although they only count collected balances
toward compensating balance requirements. Federal Reserve banks, on the
other hand, grant credit for funds presented for clearing in accordance
with a predetermined collection schedule that involves lags of up to
several days. Thus, the reported due from balances of banks clearing checks
through private correspondents may be inflated with uncollected funds compared to those of banks clearing directly through the Federal Reserve.

8.

This two-stage framework is superior to a simultaneous approach to determining
choice between System and private correspondent suppliers and volume of services consumed. Under the simultaneous approach, following say, the tobit
model, the dependent variable would be volume of services consumed where a
number of observations are massed at the zero limit. However, the fact that
observed values of services consumed for nonusers of Federal Reserve System
services are zero does not mean that such banks do not use correspondent services. Rather, these banks obtain their services from private correspondents.
Using the tobit model would be inappropriate as it assumes that banks not
using System services use no correspondent services. This erroneous assumption
would lead to biased estimates of the regression parameters.

9.

Regional Check Processing Center area clearing was opened to nonmember banks
in the early 1970's.

References

[II

Gilbert, R. A. 'Utilization of Federal Reserve Bank Services by Member
Banks: ' Implications for the Cost and Benefits of Membership." Review,
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 59 (August 1977), 2-15.

121

Greenbaum, S. I. "Correspondent Banking." Monthly Review, Federal
Reserve Bank of Kansas City, (March/April 1965), 9-16.

131

Hume, S. R. and Russell, K. S. 'A Study of the Relative Usage of Federal
Reserve Services by Member Banks in the Second Federal Reserve District.'
Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Banking Studies Division, January 25, 1978.

141

Lawrence, R. J. and Lougee, D. "Determinants of Correspondent Banking
Relationships.' Journal of Money, Credit and Banking;2 (August 1970),
358-369.

151

Maddala, G. S.

[61

Econometrics. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1977.

Meinster, D. R, and Mohindru, R. K. "Determinants of the Demand for Correspondent Balances by Small and Medium Sized Banks." Journal of Bank
Research, (Spring 1975), 25-34.

171

Summers, B. J. "Required Reserves, Correspondent Balances and Cash Asset
Positions of Member and Nonmember Banks: Evidence From the Fifth Federal
Reserve District." Proceedings of Conference on Bank Structure and
Competition. Chicago: Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, 1978.

181

.
"Correspondent Services, Federal Reserve Services, and
Bank Cash Management Policy." Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of
Richmond, 64 (November/December 1978), 29-38.

Table 1
Numerical Summary of Federal Reserve System Service Use
by Membership Classification and Deposit Size Croup

Number of Member Ranks Using

-

~-

Number of 'Nonmcllb
Banks UsinS
Check Collection

Deposit Size Group
($ millions)

Total
Member

Check
Collection

Money
Transfer

Security
Safekeeping

Wire
Transfer

Discount
Window

O-25

202

48

163

156

131

18

256

24

25-50

96

38

79

83

77

16

69

18

50-100

36

20

30

34

32

11

22

14

Over 100

52

39

49

51

50

28

26

18

ALL banks

386

145

321

324

290

73

373

74

145

145

136

134

129

45

74

74

All banks clearing
checks through the
Federal Reserve
--_-.-

.-

Total
Nonmember

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0.0019
(0.9mJ4)

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-O.oMS
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*II,.*

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(1.6491)*

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O.lJ~41
(I.166W-~
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(-1.0149B.4

0.0592
(4.2197)’

0.0791
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-0.9471
(-3.1216)’

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(4.JESl)’

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0.15611)*

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(9.9’,16)’

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-0.0129
(-2.6117)‘*

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0.5919
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(0.1413)

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(-1.1971)***4

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0.1616
(4L2011,.

0.1121
i2.4115)‘4

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(2.1491,..

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0.061
(lT.3239)’

0.1111
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