As explained in this paper, the argument for paying interest on reserves is that it acts as a floor on money market interest rates and so reduces day-to-day volatility.
Under the planned shake-up - to be detailed in a White Paper before Parliament breaks for the summer - the Territorial Army will be renamed the Army Reserves to reflect its enhanced role.
This is part of a continuing trend in which central banks have increased their gold reserves as a way of hedging or protecting against the fall in value of their holdings of paper money like the dollar and the euro.
Back before containerisation and computing (both of which this paper fingers for leading to a reduction in stocks and work in progress, as I had surmised) these reserves would be in those stocks and works in progress.
The pooling of foreign-exchange reserves are contingency measures aimed at containing crises such as the one roiling the eurozone, analysts told the paper.