Veteran of global affairs to retire in 2014 from New York Fed

Terrence Checki, a top U.S. central bank official with some 46 years of experience at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, is set to retire early next year as head of a group that promoted global financial stability and coordination.

Checki, executive vice president of the New York Fed's Emerging Markets and International Affairs Group, on Wednesday said he intends to retire in the first quarter of 2014.

Once on a short list of possible successors to Timothy Geithner as president of the New York Fed, Checki worked to smooth markets throughout the recent European debt crisis and after the September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

Checki joined the Fed bank in 1967. He also advised the Fed and the U.S. Treasury on the 1980s-90s Latin American debt crisis and the restructuring of countries after the fall of the Soviet Union.

"He has been a key figure in the management and resolution of virtually every major episode of economic and financial stress, domestically as well as internationally, that occurred during his years of service," New York Fed President William Dudley said in a statement.

No successor was named.

(Reporting by Jonathan Spicer; Editing by Leslie Adler)