Whipsawed by Interest Rates

One of the things that bankers hate most is uncertainty and abrupt changes in the underlying economics of their business, and the emerging global crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is confronting them with the perfect storm. You can blame it all on the Federal Reserve. Indeed, the higher rates that the Fed gave in 2018, it is now taken away — and that is creating a big challenge for banks as they scramble to adapt to a very different interest rate scenario from what they were dealing with just 15 months ago. On March 3, as the economic impact...