Finance

San Francisco Fed President Daly sees interest rate cuts coming as labor market weakens

Published

10 months ago

August 5, 2024

Mary Daly, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, during the National Association of Business Economics (NABE) economic policy conference in Washington, DC, US, on Friday, Feb. 16, 2024.

Graeme Sloan | Bloomberg | Getty Images

San Francisco Federal Reserve President Mary Daly on Monday said she expects that interest rates will be cut later this year but declined to provide a timetable or the extent to which the central bank will ease.

With markets expecting aggressive reductions starting in September, Daly said progress on inflation and a clear slowdown in hiring likely will drive the Fed to some extent of policy easing.

“Policy adjustments will be necessary in the coming quarter. How much that needs to be done and when it needs to take place, I think that’s going to depend a lot on the incoming information,” she said during a forum in Hawaii. “But from my mind, we’ve now confirmed that the labor market is slowing and it’s extremely important that we not let it slow so much that it turns itself into a downturn.”

The remarks come the same day Wall Street suffered its worst drawdown in nearly two years as investors wrestled with fears over slowing growth and the Fed’s response. At their meeting last week, Fed officials provided some hints that lower rates are coming but were short on specifics.

In the following two days, consecutive weak reports on layoffs, manufacturing and job creation generated a scare that the Fed is moving too slowly.

A voter this year on the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee, Daly vowed that policymakers will do what is necessary to achieve their economic objectives.

“We will do what it takes to ensure what we achieve both of our goals, price stability and full employment,” she said. “We will make policy adjustments as the economy delivers the data and we know what is required.”

Earlier in the day, Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee told CNBC that the central bank’s “restrictive” rates policy doesn’t make sense if the economy isn’t overheating, which he said it is not. If there are trouble signs with the economy, Goolsbee said the Fed will “fix it.”

Finance

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Published

2 hours ago

June 9, 2025

Business Finance News

Finance

Walmart taps own fintech firm for credit cards after Capital One exit

Published

3 hours ago

June 9, 2025

Business Finance News

A Capital One Walmart credit card sign is seen at a store in Mountain View, California, United States on Tuesday, November 19, 2019.

Yichuan Cao | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Walmart‘s majority-owned fintech startup OnePay said Monday it was launching a pair of new credit cards for customers of the world’s biggest retailer.

OnePay is partnering with Synchrony, a major behind-the-scenes player in retail cards, which will issue the cards and handle underwriting decisions starting in the fall, the companies said.

OnePay, which was created by Walmart in 2021 with venture firm Ribbit Capital, will handle the customer experience for the card program through its mobile app.

Walmart had leaned on Capital One as the exclusive provider of its credit cards since 2018, but sued the bank in 2023 so that it could exit the relationship years ahead of schedule. At the time, Capital One accused Walmart of seeking to end its partnership so that it could move transactions to OnePay.

The Walmart card program had 10 million customers and roughly $8.5 billion in loans outstanding last year, when the partnership with Capital One ended, according to Fitch Ratings.

For Walmart and its fintech firm, the arrangement shows that, in seeking to quickly scale up in financial services, OnePay is opting to partner with established players rather than going it alone.

In March, OnePay announced that it was tapping Swedish fintech firm Klarna to handle buy now, pay later loans at the retailer, even after testing its own installment loan program.

One-stop shop

In its quest to become a one-stop shop for Americans underserved by traditional banks, OnePay has methodically built out its offerings, which now include debit cards, high-yield savings accounts and a digital wallet with peer-to-peer payments.

OnePay is rolling out two options: a general-purpose credit card that can be used anywhere Mastercard is accepted and a store card that will only allow Walmart purchases.

Customers whose credit profiles don’t allow them to qualify for the general-purpose card will be offered the store card, according to a person with knowledge of the program.

OnePay didn’t yet disclose the rewards expected with the cards, though the general-purpose card is expected to provide a stronger value, said this person, who declined to be identified speaking ahead of the product’s release. The Synchrony partnership was reported earlier by Bloomberg.

“Our goal with this credit card program is to deliver an experience for consumers that’s transparent, rewarding, and easy to use,” OnePay CEO Omer Ismail said in the Monday release.

“We’re excited to be partnering with Synchrony to launch a program at Walmart that checks each of those boxes and will help serve millions of people,” Ismail said.