One of the differences between a central bank and regular bank is that the regular banks should do the riskier stuff and offer the higher interest rates. This

One of the differences between a central bank and regular bank is that the regular banks should do the riskier stuff and offer the higher interest rates. This in theory creates a diverse non-correlated system of capital deployment with the best projects winning over the bad ones. However when the central bank offers interest rates that a private bank cannot match even when it's deploying into safe and endorsed assets like MBS then some weird stuff happens... The Fed can promise risk-free returns at whatever rate they want but once it exceeds the private banks', then the banks no longer serve any purpose. If there were a way for individuals to hold accounts directly w/ the Fed, they'd all do that. Money will be sucked away from banks that deploy capital in the private sector and squeeze into ones that just passthrough to the Fed's like money market funds. With high enough interest rates, the Fed can end up sucking up liquidity even from good and safe projects and cause widespread asset collapse b/c the entities that are supposed to be doing price discovery can't compete anymore.