MARTIN CRUTSINGER
AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate has confirmed Stanley Fischer as a member of the Federal Reserve board but delayed a separate vote needed to make him the board’s vice chairman.

The vote to put Fischer on the Fed’s board was 68 to 27.

Fischer, a former head of the Bank of Israel, was tapped by President Barack Obama to succeed Janet Yellen in the Fed’s No. 2 job. Yellen vacated that post when she succeeded Ben Bernanke as Fed chair in February.

No date was announced for the separate Senate vote that is required to approve Fischer as vice chairman.

The action on Fischer will ensure that the Fed’s board has four members after another member, Jeremy Stein, leaves at the end of this month to return to his teaching post at Harvard.

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