Jim Cunha

Federal Reserve Bank of Boston

Jim Cunha is the Senior Vice President of Secure Payments and FinTech at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Cunha leads the Federal Reserve’s Secure Payment efforts, which seeks to improve the safety, security, and resiliency of the U.S. payments system. Cunha is also spearheading the Boston Fed’s efforts to study, explore, and engage with distributed ledger technology, or blockchain, to determine applicability, potential benefits, and risks for internal and external uses. He is specifically focused on the evolution of the technology and its potential impact on the financial services sector. He is also responsible for the Bank’s digital currency research efforts. Cunha is also responsible for the Mobile Payment Industry Workgroup, which is a collaborative industry effort to study and eliminate barriers to the adoption of mobile technology in payments. Cunha has worked at the Boston Fed since 1984. Prior to that, he worked at Fleet National Bank. He holds a bachelor’s in accounting and philosophy from Northeastern University and a bachelor’s in computer science from Rhode Island College. Cunha serves as a member of the board of trustees of the Justice Resource Institute, a social justice nonprofit; is an ex-officio member of the board of directors at New England ACH Association, a payments education nonprofit; and was the former chairman of the board of Children’s Friend and Family Services of Salem, Mass.