system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How autonomous are the 12 Fed banks? Are most things they do coordinated with each other?

For example, when the board of governors decides the money supply needs to be increased by purchasing *x* amount of securities, who/what determines which of the 12 Fed banks will purchase these securities and by how much each purchasing bank will purchase?
gpt
The regional banks are better thought of as banking associations rather than fulfilling a government function. It would have confused far fewer people if the Federal Reserve system was called something else.

The Federal agency called the Federal Reserve has staff in each Federal Reserve regional bank to handle regulation and other functions, they are federal employees. The regional banks are federal charter organizations but are not really part of the federal government, most of the staff are not employees of the federal government but of the regional bank itself and the member banks of the region control the regional bank (member banks are required by law to be shareholders, they "own" the regional banks).

> For example, when the board of governors decides the money supply needs to be increased by purchasing x amount of securities, who/what determines which of the 12 Fed banks will purchase these securities and by how much each purchasing bank will purchase?

NYFed has an OMO desk which executes monetary policy. Until 2002 all the primary dealers were located in NYC, and almost all are still part of NYFed, so it made sense to have the desk there.