Crucial FHLB Position Filled

The Federal Housing Finance Agency appointed H. Ronald Weissman on Thursday as the chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank System's Office of Finance. Weissman has been a senior partner in Ernst & Young's Financial Services Office since 2002, and has also worked at Arthur Andersen.

"Ron Weissman brings a breadth of experience at an important time for the FHLBanks," Ed DeMarco, the acting director of the Finance Agency, said in a press release. His accounting background "will be critical to overseeing the important role of the Office of Finance in preparing the quarterly and annual combined financial report of the FHLBanks."

The Office of Finance issues the debt of the 12 Home Loan banks and publishes a combined financial report for the system. Weissman succeeds Charles Bowsher, who resigned in March after refusing to approve the system's first-quarter combined reports. He ordered an independent study to explore options for making the system's accounting more transparent. That report came out earlier this month and called for greater centralization in the system's reporting, a move the Home Loan banks are resisting.

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