Fedwire

Fedwire (formerly known as the Federal Reserve Wire Network) is a real-time gross settlement funds transfer system operated by the United States Federal Reserve Banks that allows financial institutions to electronically transfer funds between its more than 9,289 participants (as of March 19, 2009).

The Fedwire system has grown since its inception, seeing growth in both number of transfers and total transaction dollar value of about 79% and 207% respectively between 1996 and 2016.

Starting in the 1920s up until the 1970s, the system remained largely telegraphic; however as technology improved, they began to make the shift from telegraphy towards telex, then to computer operations and then to proprietary telecommunications networks.

[4] In the early 1980s, Fedwire was taxed to its limit with the result that it was often subject to "throttle", which means that it took messages from the banks more slowly than its normal speed.

More recently, the Reserve Banks have taken advantage of the flexibility and efficiency that Internet protocol (IP) and distributed processing technologies offer.

The three data processing centers are located a considerable distance from one another (i.e., hundreds of miles) in order to mitigate the effects of natural disasters, power and telecommunication outages, and other wide-scale, regional disruptions.