FEDERAL FUNDS MARKET: The market used by banks to borrow and lend bank reserves. In particular, a substantial part of the reserves held by banks are deposits with the Federal Reserve System. On many occasions some banks will have more deposits than they need to meet the Fed's reserve requirements, while other banks find themselves a little short. It's a simple matter then for one bank to lend some of these extra reserves to another--usually for no more than a few days. Working on instructions from the banks, the Fed electronically switches funds from one account to another and a federal funds market loan has been completed. The interest rate tacked on by the lending bank is termed the federal funds rate. See also | federal funds | federal funds rate | bank reserves | excess reserves | Federal Reserve System | money supply | monetary policy | open market operations | reserve requirements | discount rate | bank | money creation | interest rate | Federal Reserve deposits |
