Financials

The Federal Reserve's efforts to lower U.S. interest rates and increase borrowing to stimulate the economy may be running into a problem of the Fed's own making: the stubbornly high cost to borrow short-term funds is constraining the ability of banks to make cheap loans.

National Savings & Investments has cut the interest rate on its tax-free cash Isa in a move it says reflects the "market trend to lower rates on similar products".

Australia’s dollar climbed to the highest level since September after the Reserve Bank unexpectedly kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged at a developed-world high.

Reinvestment risk is the buzzword among conservative investors these days. Many financial planners have started advising their clients to get locked into longertenure fixed deposits with maturities of over five years.

Continued inflationary pressures lead to interest rate hikes in Brazil in 2013 after a long period of monetary easing, former central bank President Arminio Fraga said in an interview published Sunday by the Estado de S. Paulo newspaper.

The prospect of lower interest rates often means one thing in financial markets– a weaker currency. But that does not appear to be the case with the Australian dollar, which is expected to stay strong even as the nation’s central bank looks set to cut interest rates again this week.

Felton homeowners will likely see a slight drop in their property tax bills next year, thanks to low municipal bond interest rates.

Norges Bank will probably keep interest rates unchanged for a fourth meeting after the krone’s strength pushed inflation below target and as policy makers in Europe fail to end the region’s debt crisis.