The US Federal Reserve (Fed) announced on Friday, 15 August 2025, that it is scrapping its “novel activities” supervision program. This program provided oversight into the crypto and fintech activities of institutional lenders, reported the news agency Reuters.
According to the agency report, the banking regulator will now integrate the work into its regular bank oversight.
The US central bank, Federal Reserve, launched the new programme in 2023 in efforts to focus on how the banks in the United States are interacting with the emerging technologies like cryptocurrencies.
However, now the US Fed says that the programme was no longer required as the central bank has strengthened its understanding of those risks and how the banks are managing them.
United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called for a Federal Reserve rate cut on 13 August 2025 and suggested lowering the key benchmark interest rates by 150-175 basis points (bps).
Bessent expects that there is a ‘good’ chance of a 50 bps rate cut starting in September 2025.
“There’s a very good chance of a 50 basis point rate cut. We could go into a series of rate cuts here, starting with a 50 basis point rate cut in September. By any model, rates should probably be 150, 175 basis points lower,” Bessent said in an interaction with Bloomberg TV.
The US Fed's Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) decided, in its July policy decision, to keep the key benchmark interest rates unchanged at a range of 4.25-4.5%, as per the official announcement.
“The Committee decided to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 4-¼ to 4-½%. In considering the extent and timing of additional adjustments to the target range for the federal funds rate,” said the US Fed.
The central bank cited that the US inflation still remains at a ‘somewhat elevated’ level, but the unemployment rate remains low, with solid labour market conditions.
