Financials Try Again On Business Checking Bill

The House last week passed a bill that has become somewhat of a perennial in the Capitol. The measure would lift a Depression-era ban on banks paying interest on business checking accounts. The bill, which has tough sledding ahead in the Senate, would also require the Federal Reserve to pay interest on so-called sterile reserves, the deposits banks and credit unions are required to make with the Fed in exchange for access to the Fed's discount window, the emergency loan fund. You may recall the bankers' were trying to tie a similar proposal to HR 1151, the 1998 CU Membership Access Act, to no avail.