Corrigan to leave Fed job

GERALD CORRIGAN, the influential president of the New York branch of the US Federal Reserve system, said yesterday that he planned to resign his post on 20 August to take up a job in the private sector, writes Larry Black.

Mr Corrigan has been president of the New York Fed since 1985, and an employee of the US central bank since 1968. Since 1991, he has also been chairman of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, the group that co-ordinates bank regulation among the world's leading central banks.

Mr Corrigan told a news conference yesterday that 'a time for a change has clearly arrived', but stressed that he had no policy disputes with anyone at the Fed.

'There are no hidden agendas,' he said, adding that he was not interested in heading the Fed board or in serving in government.

Before being named to head the most important of the 12 regional banks of the Federal Reserve system, he served as a special assistant to Paul Volcker, the banker who preceded Alan Greenspan as the Federal Reserve Board's chairman. From 1980 to 1985, he headed the Minneapolis Fed.

Mr Corrigan's replacement will be chosen by the New York Fed's directors and approved by the Fed's board of governors.