Sure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_reserves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_reserves Banks are required by law to keep a portion of their assets o

Sure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_reserves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_reserves Banks are required by law to keep a portion of their assets on deposit in reserve. So if a bank has say, 1 billion in deposits, they might be required to maintain a balance with the Fed of 100 million. What I think you're asking though is "why don't they just not keep the cash at the federal reserve". And the answer is that that's just not a thing you can do. Your bank maintains an account with the Fed - that's how it actually "stores" money. It can also physically store cash, but that comes with carrying costs (protecting it, etc.). Those carrying costs are one form of a negative interest rate. At the end of the day, someone is storing the money somewhere. And the root-level money storer in the economy is the Fed. If the Fed wants to charge you 0.5%/year to store your money, what are your alternatives? You could keep physical cash. But then you have to protect it. You could invest in other assets, like stocks/bonds/mortgages, but those have risks. If you can't find any investments you like, and you don't want to physically store the cash, you don't really have any other choice.