Paying banks interest

Okay, most of us do. But the Fed does also. It paid the banks $25.2 billion in interest on reserves from 2008 to 2014. This interest is paid on the money the banks have at the Fed. They are required to have 10 percent of the value of  their loans parked at the Fed. Some have more. The rate is small - .25 percent - but the payment of any interest on funds held at the Fed did not come about until 2006, although the Fed was founded almost 100 years earlier.