Headlines:
Fed Won't Reopen New Orleans Check Site
The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta is permanently closing its New Orleans check processing operation, which it moved to Atlanta after Hurricane Katrina hit.
All employees of the check-processing center at the New Orleans branch, many of whom have been living and working in Atlanta since the disaster, will be offered permanent jobs there, the Federal Reserve banks' Financial Services Policy Committee announced Monday. Those who wish to return to New Orleans can apply for jobs at the Atlanta Fed's offices there.
The bank's New Orleans branch was closed for about a month after the hurricane. It reopened in late September, though not its check processing operation, which has about 50 employees.
With check volume declining, the Fed has been gradually closing down processing sites for several years. It said Monday that closing the New Orleans operation and moving its work to Atlanta had been considered earlier in the year.
"As we looked ahead, we were certain that at some point in the near future we would be moving New Orleans' check processing volume to Atlanta," said Patrick Barron, the director of the Fed's retail payments office and a first vice president of the Atlanta Fed, in a press release.
One reason to make the temporary change permanent, he said, was to avoid having employees return to New Orleans only to be told later that their jobs were moving back to Atlanta.
Oracle Reselling i-flex Basel Software
The Redwood Shores, Calif., software company Oracle Corp. has started reselling Basel II compliance software developed by i-flex solutions ltd., the Bangalore company in which Oracle purchased a minority stake last month.
Andrea Klein, the vice president for financial services industry strategy and marketing at Oracle, said in an interview Tuesday that it is now offering i-flex's Reveleus Basel II software and stopped offering its own product, Regulatory Capital Manager, last month.
"We made the decision that the i-flex Reveleus product has more features and more functions than what we had to offer," Ms. Klein said.
Since Oracle is only a partial owner, it must treat i-flex as a separate entity when entering reselling agreements, she said.
