The Federal Reserve's inspector general says the Fed violated its own rules for handling sensitive material when it inadvertently issued the minutes of a policy meeting a day before the scheduled release.

The IG's report recommended procedural changes after the Fed minutes were sent a day early to more than 100 congressional staffers and financial industry lobbyists.

The recipients of the March minutes included congressional staffers and employees of JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs Group, Wells Fargo and other large banks.

The minutes had been scheduled for release at 2 p.m. April 10. The Fed discovered that they had been inadvertently emailed a day early by a staffer in its congressional liaison office. The Fed then released the minutes to the public and the news media five hours earlier than scheduled.