At its last meeting earlier in May, the U.S. Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) indicated it’s considering at least a pause in its historic run of rate increases that’s seen the central bank take the benchmark fed funds rate from about 0% in early 2022 to the current targeted range of 5.0%-5.25%. While that fast pace of rate hikes hasn’t succeeded in bringing inflation down to the Fed’s 2% target, the central bank also has its eyes on the growing troubles in the U.S. banking system, which has led to the failure of a number of regional lenders, most recently First Republic Bank.
