Fed glitch shuts down wire transfers, direct deposits, other services [telecom]

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A Fed statement attributed the outage to "operational error."

By Timothy B. Lee

Federal Reserve electronic systems that enable US banks to send each other electronic payments experienced a massive outage on Wednesday afternoon. A Fed statement attributed the outage to an "operational error" but didn't provide much more detail.

The Federal Reserve System acts as America's central bank, and it controls much of the plumbing of the US financial system.