US Banking
Federal Reserve District
A Federal Reserve district is one of 12 geographic regions in the United States, each served by a regional Federal Reserve Bank. These districts were established by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and are numbered 01 (Boston) through 12 (San Francisco). Each district bank supervises member banks, processes payments, and implements monetary policy within its region.
The first two digits of a bank's routing number encode the Federal Reserve district and processing center. For example, routing numbers starting with 01 through 12 correspond directly to the 12 districts, while numbers in the 21-32 range indicate the same districts but for thrift institutions. Banks participate in Fedwire and other Federal Reserve payment services through their district bank. You can identify the district from any routing number using BankCheck's routing number tool.
The district encoding in routing numbers helps verify that a bank is a legitimate US depository institution registered with the Federal Reserve. It also determines which Fed bank processes the institution's payments. Understanding districts can help explain why a bank has a particular routing number prefix and confirm that the number is geographically consistent with the bank's location.
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