Read about the initiatives undertaken to address the financial crisis in the first issue of S&R Perspectives. The electronic newsletter also reports on risk management, a program for minority and de novo banks and efforts to fight fraud.

The Fraud Awareness section of the Richmond Fed Web site has been updated with information about a type of fraud that has emerged recently: mortgage foreclosure rescue scams.

The Richmond Fed's Banking Supervision & Regulation department is introducing a new newsletter in December.

WARNING: We have noticed increased fraudulent wire transfer activity throughout the Fifth District.

The Federal Reserve System has been asked by the FBI to forward to its supervised institutions the following emergency supervisory message pertaining to an actual or potential critical situation affecting the banking industry. The Federal Reserve has no additional information regarding this situation.

The federal banking and thrift regulatory agencies encourage all eligible institutions to use the Treasury Department's Capital Purchase Program and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program.

The federal banking and thrift regulatory agencies announced today that they will allow banks, bank holding companies, and thrifts (collectively, "banking organizations") to recognize the effect of the tax change enacted in Section 301 of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (EESA) in their third quarter 2008 regulatory capital calculations.

Beginning today, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) will hold the first in a series of conference calls with the banking industry to answer technical questions regarding the newly announced Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program.