WARREN OPENS INQUIRY INTO SERIOUS FEDERAL RESERVE DATA OUTAGE, PRESSES BANKING AGENCIES ON IMPACTS OF DRASTIC WORKFORCE CUTS

The following information was released by the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs:

"I am writing to request information regarding reports my office received of a recent outage of the Federal Reserve's (Fed) National Information Center (NIC), which hosts critical data for the Fed's bank supervision, discount window, and other functions."

Warren also sent letter to Bowman, FDIC, OCC about impacts of workforce cuts to oversight of bank third-party technology systems

Text of Letter to Bowman on NIC (PDF) | Text of Letter to Banking Regulators (PDF)

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ranking Member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, sent Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman a request for information about reports the Ranking Member received regarding a recent outage at the Fed's National Information Center (NIC), a key data platform that facilitates bank supervision, the discount window, and other Fed functions. Ranking Member Warren raised questions about whether workforce cuts in the Division of Supervision and Regulation impacted the ability of information technology staff to adequately operate the NIC.

Ranking Member Warren also wrote to Federal Reserve Vice Chair Bowman, Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chairman Travis Hill regarding the impact of bank examiner workforce cuts and the ability of their respective agencies to oversee banks' technology-focused third-party service providers, including AI-related vendors.

"It is my understanding that around Wednesday, August 5, 2026, the NIC suffered an outage that lasted at least 48 hours," wrote Ranking Member Warren.

"It is important for Congress to understand the nature of this outage," the Ranking Member continued. "Its impact, if any, on the Fed's critical functions; and how, if at all, your 30% staffing cuts in the Division of Supervision and Regulation affected the ability of Fed information technology (IT) staff to perform necessary maintenance of the NIC."

The Ranking Member requested answers from Federal Reserve Vice Chair Bowman about the nature, impact, and causes of this alleged outage, asking the following questions:

Did this NIC outage occur? If so, when? When was the outage resolved?

What caused the outage? Was it a previously known IT issue?

Please provide details about your response to the outage, including the following:

How did the Fed become aware of the system outage?

What was the delay between the outage start time and when the Fed became aware of it?

What was the delay between the outage start time and when troubleshooting of the system commenced?

Who was in charge of troubleshooting the NIC?

How were users of the NIC notified of the outage, and was there any delay in notifying users?

Did the Fed conduct any retrospectives on the incident? If so, please provide details.

Does the Fed have a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) defined for the NIC?

If so, what is the defined RTO?

If so, please provide a list of outages that exceed the defined RTO in the past 2 years along with details of these outages, how long they lasted, and why they occurred.

What was the impact of the outage on the Fed's bank supervision, discount window, and other functions?