Fed’s Steady Interest Rates: What Does This Mean for You?

The Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged citing a global economic slowdown and market volatility in the US.

The central bank kept the benchmark federal funds rate at 0.25-0.5 percent and scaled back forecasts of higher interest rates noting that the economy is exposed to the “uncertain global economy.”

What does this mean for online lenders? Not much directly as marketplace lenders don’t use the prime rate as a benchmark. But by association, it could affect demand for loans, credit performance and capital supply as the Fed rates play with investors’ expectations of yield.

But a small increase in rates wouldn’t have affected the industry too adversely. “Given the cushion we’ve already built into our loan pricing, we don’t plan to increase rates if there’s a small shift in the base rate,” Sam Hodges, co-founder and managing director of Funding Circle told WSJ last year, ahead of the rate hike in December.

But policymakers expect the central bank to raise rates by 0.5 percent by the end of this year. Will that affect be of any consequence? Hard to tell.