The Edge Act is a 1919 amendment to the United States Federal Reserve Act of 1913, codified at 12 U.S.C. §§ 611–631, which allows national banks to engage in international banking through subsidiaries chartered by the privately held Federal Reserve Bank. The act is named after Walter Evans Edge, a U.S. Senator from New Jersey who sponsored the original legislation for these types of subsidiaries. The impetus for the act was to give U.S. firms more flexibility to compete with foreign firms.