Thursday, April 7, 2016

Unit 4- Banks and the FED

Function of Banks
  • A bank is a financial intermediary- uses liquid assets to finance the investments of borrowers.
  • Fractional Reserve Banking- depository institutions hold liquid assets less than the amount of deposits; can take the form of currency in bank vaults or bank reserves deposits held at the Federal Reserve
  • T-Account (Balance Sheet)- statements of assets and liabilities
  • Asset (Amounts owned)- items to which a bank holds legal claim; the use of funds by fiancial intemediares
  • Liabilities(Amounts owed)- the legal claims against a bank; the source of funds for financial intermediaries
Function of the FED

  • issues paper currency
  • sets reserve requirements and holds reserves of the bank
  • lends money to bank and charges interest
  • check clearing service for banks
  • acts as a personal bank for government
  • supervises member banks
  • controls money supply
Reserve Requirement

  • FED requires bank to always have some money readily available to meet consumers' demand for cash, this amount is set by the FED is the required reserve ratio
  • the required reserve ratio is the percentage of demand deposits that must not be loaned out
  • required reserve ratio usually = 10%



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