Woman walks past the Federal Reserve in Washington Thomson Reuters WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve on Tuesday said that it would turn over $92.0 billion in profits to the U.S. Treasury in 2016.

The figure is down from the $97.7 billion that the central bank's 12 regional banks paid back to the U.S. government in 2015.

The Fed earns interest on government bonds and other U.S. agency securities it purchased to battle the financial crisis.

(Reporting by Patrick Rucker and Howard Schneider; Editing by Andrea Ricci)