Federal Reserve lifts federal funds target to 3.75%–4% as Bank of Japan sets policy rate at 1.25%

Federal Reserve sets the federal funds target at 3.75%–4%

75% to 4%. The move is the reference figure practitioners should plug into debt-service models, mortgage amortisation sheets and any consumer-rate lookups that benchmark off the policy corridor. Readers running payment calculators should expect every adjustable-rate line item built on the federal funds anchor to reprice once commercial banks pass the change through, so the inputs to verify first are the prime rate, SOFR and any contract clauses that reference the corridor by name.

A walk-through of how the policy rate feeds into a monthly mortgage bill is laid out in How to Calculate a Mortgage Payment With an Interest Rate, and the actual amortisation can be re-run in the Mortgage Calculator.

Bank of Japan lifts policy rate to 1.25%, a 31-year peak

25%, described as the highest level in 31 years. The central bank framed the decision against geopolitical tensions, rising AI demand and a weak yen, signalling that policymakers are leaning against currency weakness even as the export-sensitive economy absorbs the cost. 25% as the new anchor and rebuild forward curves around it; cross-currency conversion then feeds into FX-denominated loan calculators, where a fast number extractor helps sanity-check figures copied from reports, as covered in Extract Numbers from Text.

Central bank reference tables go live

Two central banks posted fresh reference tables. The Central Bank of the Russian Federation published official exchange rates of foreign currencies against the ruble from 19.09.2026. Separately, the National Bank of Georgia maintained its official indicative exchange rate, with use limited to instances set by the relevant legal requirements. Together the two publications give practitioners a same-day cross-check between an administered FX regime (ruble fix) and an indicative regime (lari), which matters for anyone reconciling cross-border invoices or comparing parallel-market quotes against official prints.

What to check next

Practitioners should re-run loan amortisations against the new policy corridors before any client-facing number is shared, because the inputs that changed on 20 September 2026 are the federal funds target range and the Bank of Japan policy rate. Mortgage and consumer-rate calculators should be the first tools refreshed, followed by any cross-currency conversion tied to the ruble or the lari. Where the underlying report is in a flat document rather than a calculator input box, Extract Numbers from Text can pull the printed digits before they are pasted into a sheet.

A broader sweep of central-bank prints, including sovereign yields and state mortgage-program reference figures, is logged at Central banks, sovereign yields, and state mortgage programs post fresh reference figures for early September 2026 for later back-checks. There are no later decisions named with concrete dates in the evidence; follow-up numbers will arrive when each central bank publishes its next scheduled rate statement or daily fix.