28 Facts About Federal Reserve

1.

Federal Reserve System is the central banking system of the United States of America.

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2.

Congress established three key objectives for monetary policy in the Federal Reserve Act: maximizing employment, stabilizing prices, and moderating long-term interest rates.

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3.

Twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks, located in cities throughout the nation, regulate and oversee privately-owned commercial banks.

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4.

Today the Federal Reserve System has responsibilities in addition to stabilizing the financial system.

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5.

The Federal Reserve System was designed as an attempt to prevent or minimize the occurrence of bank runs, and possibly act as a lender of last resort when a bank run does occur.

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6.

Many economists, following Nobel laureate Milton Friedman, believe that the Federal Reserve inappropriately refused to lend money to small banks during the bank runs of 1929; Friedman argued that this contributed to the Great Depression.

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7.

The purpose of keeping funds at a Federal Reserve Bank is to have a mechanism for private banks to lend funds to one another.

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8.

Board of governors in the Federal Reserve System has a number of supervisory and regulatory responsibilities in the U S banking system, but not complete responsibility.

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9.

The twelve Federal Reserve Banks provide banking services to depository institutions and to the federal government.

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10.

The Federal Reserve plays a role in the nation's retail and wholesale payments systems by providing financial services to depository institutions.

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11.

The System does not require public funding, and derives its authority and purpose from the Federal Reserve Act, which was passed by Congress in 1913 and is subject to Congressional modification or repeal.

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12.

The four main components of the Federal Reserve System are the board of governors, the Federal Open Market Committee, the twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks, and the member banks throughout the country.

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13.

The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is a permanent member of the FOMC; the presidents of the other banks rotate membership at two- and three-year intervals.

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14.

Charter and organization of each Federal Reserve Bank is established by law and cannot be altered by the member banks.

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15.

Federal Reserve Banks have an intermediate legal status, with some features of private corporations and some features of public federal agencies.

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16.

However, holding stock in a Federal Reserve bank is not like owning stock in a publicly traded company.

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17.

The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 gave the Federal Reserve authority to set monetary policy in the United States.

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18.

The required reserve ratio sets the balance that the Federal Reserve System requires a depository institution to hold in the Federal Reserve Banks, which depository institutions trade in the federal funds market discussed above.

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19.

The Federal Reserve's response has continued to evolve since pressure on credit markets began to surface last summer, but all these measures derive from the Fed's traditional open market operations and discount window tools by extending the term of transactions, the type of collateral, or eligible borrowers.

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20.

Term deposits are intended to facilitate the implementation of monetary policy by providing a tool by which the Federal Reserve can manage the aggregate quantity of reserve balances held by depository institutions.

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21.

Federal Reserve recently unveiled a term auction facility, or TAF, through which prespecified amounts of discount window credit can be auctioned to eligible borrowers.

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22.

Term Deposit facility is a program through which the Federal Reserve Banks offer interest-bearing term deposits to eligible institutions.

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23.

The Federal Reserve authorized up to five "small-value offerings" in 2010 as a pilot program.

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24.

Under that policy, the Federal Reserve buys back corporate bonds and mortgage backed securities held by banks or other financial institutions.

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25.

Ultimately, a third national bank, known as the Federal Reserve, was established in 1913 and still exists to this day.

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26.

The plan became the basis for the Federal Reserve Act, which was proposed by Senator Robert Owen in May 1913.

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27.

Federal Reserve stopped publishing M3 statistics in March 2006, saying that the data cost a lot to collect but did not provide significantly useful information.

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28.

Federal Reserve System has faced various criticisms since its inception in 1913.

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