The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco serves the Twelfth Federal Reserve District, the largest in the Federal Reserve System. Headquartered in San Francisco, the Bank has branch locations in Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, and Salt Lake City, and a cash processing center in Phoenix.
Today, the District’s nine western states, three territories, and a commonwealth cover 1.4 million square miles, or 37% of the nation’s area, and are home to roughly one-fifth of the U.S. population. The District encompasses a broad array of industries—including agriculture, construction, entertainment, finance, manufacturing, entertainment, technology, and tourism—that employ more than 32 million workers.
Addressing the Growth of Banking Activity in the Western States
The region looked much different when Congress created the Federal Reserve in 1913. The seven western states that initially comprised the Twelfth District were considered the American frontier. At that time, Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington were home to roughly 6% of the population and 6% of all banks in the United States.
The San Francisco Fed was formally established on May 20, 1914. Its main functions were to supply currency, clear checks, and provide credit to commercial banks in its District. Within a few years of its founding, the San Francisco Fed established branches in Spokane (1917—consolidated with Seattle in 1938), Seattle (1917), Portland (1917), Salt Lake City (1918), and Los Angeles (1920) to work with banks in those areas.
Shifting from a Manufacturing Force to a Global Technology Hub
When the Twelfth District was established, its economy was heavily focused on agriculture and natural resource extraction.
This changed dramatically as the region went through its first reinvention, a shift that culminated in the decades after World War II as hydroelectric power, a concentration of engineering know-how, and the burgeoning growth of western markets fueled a nascent factory network and turned the region into a manufacturing powerhouse. The District’s largest state, California, led the way, starting with food processing and oil refining, and then expanding into a broad range of light and heavy manufacturing.
These developments laid the groundwork for the region’s second reinvention—a shift to a service and knowledge-based economy, cementing the area’s status as a center of research, engineering, and design.
Today, the District is a hub for innovation and invention, with leading research institutions, venture capital firms, and entrepreneurs working together to develop and deploy pioneering technologies across the economy.
As the U.S. has grown, the Twelfth District has come to include Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawai’i, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington—plus American Samoa, Guam, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Spanning glaciers, beaches, deserts, and mountain peaks, the District’s landscape is as varied as its businesses and communities.
Focusing on Our Core Functions and Exploring Emerging Technologies
Over more than a century, the San Francisco Fed has remained focused on its core functions: to support monetary policy, strengthen financial institutions, and enhance the payments systems.
In carrying out its mission to advance the nation’s monetary, financial, and payment systems to build a stronger economy for all Americans, the San Francisco Fed has continued to innovate and evolve its efforts.
For example, in 1972, the San Francisco Fed was the first Federal Reserve District to operate the Automated Clearing House (ACH) to facilitate electronic bank-to-bank transfers. In 1996, the San Francisco Fed established one of the first public web sites in the Federal Reserve System, a demonstration of our commitment to communication and transparency as a public service organization.
As the institution and its staff look forward, they continue to seek to better understand how new technologies are affecting the world. In 2024, the San Francisco Fed, in partnership with the Federal Reserve System Innovation Office, created the EmergingTech Economic Research Network (EERN). EERN fosters thought leadership by hosting academic seminars and providing an open-source research repository of content on emerging technology and the economy for academics, researchers, and technologists.