Federal Reserve Policy Statements

Key dates

2026-10-28

FOMC statement released; target federal funds range maintained at 3.75% to 4.00% and ample-reserves policy continued.

Suggested considerations

• Compliance and risk teams may wish to record the October 28, 2026 target range of 3.75% to 4.00% and the 10-2 vote in regulatory change-management and market-risk records.
• Firms should consider reviewing interest-rate, basis, liquidity and funding-risk limits against scenarios involving a further 25-basis-point increase, including a possible December 2026 hike suggested by independent market commentary.
• Banks and other lenders may wish to assess the effect of persistently elevated rates on borrower affordability, refinancing risk, delinquency assumptions, fair-lending monitoring and customer communications.
• Treasury and finance teams should consider validating the treatment of the unchanged policy rate in transfer-pricing, liquidity-stress, valuation, hedge-accounting and capital-planning models.
• Broker-dealers, asset managers and leveraged funds may wish to reassess margin, collateral, redemption-liquidity and counterparty exposures under higher-for-longer rate scenarios.
• Compliance teams should consider monitoring the forthcoming FOMC implementation note and subsequent Federal Reserve communications for any operational details affecting reserve management or money-market conditions.
• Firms should consider documenting the distinction between this policy decision and a new regulatory rule: the statement contains no new prudential ratio, disclosure, reporting or customer-protection requirement.

What changed

The FOMC made no change to the federal funds target range, which remains 3.75% to 4.00%, and did not announce a change to its policy of maintaining ample reserves in the banking system. The statement upgraded its description of economic activity to expanding at a strong pace and characterized productivity growth and capital investment as strong or robust, while stating that inflation remains elevated. The Committee emphasized that it will assess additional information in determining the policy stance needed to return inflation to its 2% goal. Lisa D. Cook and Beth M.