FRANKFURT - The US Federal Reserve should play a bigger part in the development of electronic retail payment systems, a top Fed official said on Monday.

'In light of the trend toward greater industry concentration and the existence of important payments system externalities, the Federal Reserve should play a larger and more active role in electronic retail payments,' Thomas Hoenig, president of the Kansas City Fed, said in the text of a speech to be given at an European Central Bank conference in Frankfurt.

Mr Hoenig also said that it was unlikely more competition in the payment systems would emerge without the Fed's participation, especially at current times when capital is scarce and expensive.

Mr Hoenig, who is not a voting member of the central bank's Federal Open Market Committee in 2009, did not comment on the economic outlook or interest rates in his speech.

The US central bank has cut interest rates to near zero and committed to massive lending and securities purchases to heal shattered financial markets and pull the economy out of the longest recession since the Great Depression. -- REUTERS