The federal funds rate refers to the interest rate that banks charge other banks for lending them money from their reserve balances on an overnight basis. By law, banks must maintain a reserve equal to a certain percentage of their deposits in an account at a Federal Reserve bank. Federal Funds Data Historical Search: Data available from 07/03/2000 to the present: Please enter a date or Date, EFFR, Intraday Low, Intraday High, Std. Dev. and Target Rate/Range. The following data items are available for dates from 03/01/2016 – present: Date, EFFR, Target Rate/Range, 1st Percentile, 25th Percentile, 75th Percentile The federal funds rate is the interest rate at which depository institutions trade federal funds (balances held at Federal Reserve Banks) with each other overnight. When a depository institution has surplus balances in its reserve account, it lends to other banks in need of larger balances.