Staying informed on the operational status of Federal Reserve Bank Services is a critical part of your business contingency planning. By going to the Service Status page on FRBservices.org^SM, your organization can view service alerts, general notifications and messages. Your staff should become familiar with the differences between these types of Service Status posts and refer to the page on a regular basis.

Alerts

The Federal Reserve Banks publish alerts when there is a disruption to one of our services. Service alerts contain recommended actions, alternative processing options and support contact information. We publish updates every 30-60 minutes depending on the severity of the issue. As shown below, an active alert will appear on the right-hand side of the Service Status page.

General notifications

The Federal Reserve Banks post a general notification when we need to communicate a message that doesn’t necessarily impact a specific service area. For example, if there’s a far-reaching weather issue or a broad testing message and we want to reassure our customers that our services are working properly, we will post a general notification. You can view general notifications at the bottom of the Service Status page. See an example below.

Messages

The Federal Reserve Banks post messages to Service Status when we are communicating information about a specific service area, such as opening time and close of day messages, maintenance, extensions and testing. Services with active messages will appear in blue text on the Service Status page. You can view messages by clicking on the name of a specific service. You will then see a new window open with a message like the one below.