The Fed Held Rates Steady. Savings Rates Didn't Move.

What did the Fed decide on July 29?

The Federal Reserve held its target range at 3.50%–3.75% at the conclusion of its July 28–29 meeting — but the vote was 9–3, with Beth Hammack, Neel Kashkari, and Lorie Logan each dissenting in favor of a quarter-point increase.

That's the unusual part. Markets spent the past two weeks repricing toward a hike, three policymakers formally voted for one, and Chair Kevin Warsh drew the line publicly: "There is no soft inflation target, there is no soft implicit target — not on this Committee's watch."

And over that same stretch, four of the seven high-yield savings accounts Arca tracks were moving the other direction — trimming APYs by 10 to 20 basis points between May 18 and July 20.

So the natural question the morning after: now that the decision is in, did deposit rates respond?

Which banks changed their savings rate within 24 hours of the decision?

None. Not one of the banks and fintechs Arca tracks changed its published savings APY within 24 hours of the decision. Arca re-captured every public rate page after the announcement and again this morning. Every rate is exactly where it was Wednesday afternoon: SoFi Savings at 3.80% with direct deposit, Marcus by Goldman Sachs Online Savings at 3.40%, American Express High Yield Savings and Ally Bank Online Savings at 3.00%, and Bank of America and Chase standard savings at 0.04% and 0.01%.

Rates captured from each bank's public rate page and recorded in the Arca rate table, with qualifying-product conditions disclosed inline. SoFi's 3.80% is a six-month intro boost over a 3.10% standard rate. As of July 30, 2026.

That stillness is the expected result after a hold — and it's exactly why the four adjustments before the meeting are the more interesting data point. Deposit rates don't wait for the Fed, and they don't jump when the Fed stands pat. The repricing this cycle happened in the eight quiet weeks before the vote, not the 24 hours after it.

Why didn't savings rates move?

Because a hold changes nothing in a bank's funding math — the adjustment already happened, weeks before the vote. Deposit rates are set per-bank, off three inputs: what funding the bank needs, where it sits against the competing online accounts, and how much attention savers are paying. None of those moved at 2:00 p.m. Wednesday.

One nuance worth being precise about, because it's often stated wrong: the old rule of thumb that "banks cut deposit rates fast and raise them slow" is mostly a fact about large branch-based banks. The online high-yield cohort reprices quickly in both directions — Arca's own capture shows these accounts adjusting within weeks of a change in the outlook, not quarters. The place the asymmetry really lives is the standard savings tier at the big banks, which barely reprices at all: Chase standard savings has paid 0.01% APY and Bank of America 0.04% through this entire rate cycle — hikes, cuts, holds, and dissents alike.

What is the gap worth while rates hold?

About $299 a year on a $10,000 balance — that's the difference between Chase's 0.01% standard tier and the lowest-paying high-yield account Arca tracks (3.00% APY), even after this summer's trims. Against the top of the tracked field — Axos ONE Savings at 4.21% APY as of this morning's capture, which requires a $1,500 monthly direct deposit and a $1,500 daily balance — the difference is wider still. For a saver, that's the actionable number in this data: the opportunity that exists today doesn't depend on anything the Fed does in September.

For scale: if the Fed had delivered the 25-basis-point hike three officials wanted, and a bank passed every basis point through, that would be worth $25 a year on a $10,000 balance. The gap that already exists, today, with no Fed action at all, is roughly twelve times that.

The dollar math for any balance is in the Arca savings calculator — current rates for all tracked accounts, conditions included, are on the rate table.

What happens in September?

The next FOMC meeting is September 15–16 — a Summary of Economic Projections meeting — and as of this morning, fed-funds futures tracked by CME FedWatch put roughly 63% probability on a quarter-point hike as of July 30.

No forecast from us — just the observable setup: three dissents on record, a chair talking about hard inflation targets, and markets leaning toward an increase. If a hike comes, the open question is pass-through: this summer's data shows online banks repricing downward within weeks; a September hike would show, in real time, how fast the same banks reprice upward. Arca captures every tracked rate page weekly — and same-day around Fed decisions — so that answer will be on this page within 24 hours of the September meeting.

Rates have moved since July 30; these are today's top rates.

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