12/01/2026

BIZ & FINANCE MONDAY | JAN 12, 2026

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Banks concerned over Trump’s call to slash credit card rates WASHINGTON: The US banking industry is warning that President Donald Trump’s plans to lower credit card costs would make credit less available and hurt consumers and businesses. Trump said on Friday that effective Jan 20, the first anniversary of his administration, he was calling for a 10% cap on credit card interest rates. “We will no longer let the American Public be ‘ripped off’ by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” he said on Truth Social. Five associations representing US banks responded that they shared Trump’s goal of helping Americans access“more affordable credit”. “At the same time, evidence shows that a 10% interest rate cap would reduce credit availability and be devastating for millions of American families and small business owners who rely on and value their credit cards. “If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives,“ said the joint statement by the American Bankers Association, Bank Policy Institute, Consumer Bankers Association, Financial Services Forum and Independent Community Bankers of America. Credit cards are the primary source of consumer credit in the United States. Costs and outstanding balances have soared in recent years as people increasingly rely on them to maintain spending, even for basic necessities. According to data from the Federal Reserve, the total outstanding credit card debt exceeded US$1.23 trillion at the end of September – the fourth-largest source of household debt, after mortgages, student loans and auto loans. Interest rates on credit cards are at least 21% and can reach as high as 38% for borrowers with a higher risk profile, according to the Fed. This is up from an average of around 12% a decade ago. With midterm elections due in November, Trump is under pressure to reduce the cost of living as promised during his 2024 election campaign amid stubborn inflation and consumers’complaints that they struggle to make ends meet. – AFP Cloudflare threatens Olympic services over piracy fine ROME: US internet company Cloudflare has threatened to pull its services in Italy, including for the Winter Olympics, after being fined €14 million (RM65 million) for failing to tackle online piracy. Italy’s independent communications watchdog, Agcom, announced the fine last Thursday for“ongoing violation of the anti-piracy law”, notably failing to disable content flagged under its “Piracy Shield” system. The system allows rightsholders of live-streamed events to report pirated content through an automated platform, with providers required to block the content within 30 minutes. In a lengthy post on X late Friday, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince condemned what he said was a “scheme to censor the internet”. He said the system had“no judicial oversight”, no appeal process and no transparency, and required services to block content not just in Italy, but globally. Cloudflare had already launched legal challenges against the scheme and would now fight the fine, which he called “unjust”. He also said his company was considering “discontinuing the millions of dollars in pro bono cyber-security services we are providing the upcoming Milano-Cortina Olympics”. Cloudflare is a platform that provides services including security and traffic management and optimisation for websites and applications. – AFP

Workers at a construction site on a street in New York City. – AFPPIC

US December hiring misses expectations o Economist says 2025 is worst year for job gains outside of recession since 2003

“In essence, we are seeing validation of the idea that job creation is very weak and companies have been letting workers go at a slow pace,” he said in a note. “There aren’t any red flashing lights indicating an imminent recession, but there are plenty of yellow warning lights flashing and there is the risk that we could approach stall speed.” On Friday, the Trump administration also acknowledged that it inadvertently published some hiring data on social media a night before the full jobs report was due to be released. “Following the regular procedure of presidents being prebriefed on economic data releases, there was an inadvertent public disclosure of aggregate data that was partially derived from pre-released information,” a White House official said. “The White House is accordingly reviewing protocols regarding economic data releases,” the official added. For now, economist Samuel Tombs of Pantheon Macroeconomics expects December’s figures are “weak enough” to keep a further interest rate reduction by the Fed in the cards. The sluggish job growth figure was underpinned by a mere 37,000 increase in private payrolls, he said. While the unemployment rate crept down, analysts have noted that this was no surprise as it could have resulted from an earlier pick up in layoffs linked to a lengthy government shutdown. “For many businesses, uncertainty about federal government policy and the impact of AI warrants an extended pause on new hiring. Accordingly, we look for only a small pick-up in employment growth ahead,” Tombs said. – AFP

WASHINGTON: The United States added fewer jobs than expected in December, government data showed last week, capping the labour market’s weakest year since the Covid-19 pandemic amid growing concerns about hiring. US employment rose by 50,000 last month, slowing from a revised 56,000 in November, the Department of Labour said. The jobless rate – measured by a different survey within the report – inched down to 4.4% from 4.5%. For 2025, payroll employment grew by 584,000, significantly lower than the increase of 2.0 million in 2024. Investors will be digesting the data for its potential bearing on the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decisions, as a sharp deterioration in the jobs market could nudge the US central bank to lower rates sooner to boost the world’s biggest economy. While December’s figures were decent, job growth has slowed significantly over the past year while the unemployment rate crept up towards its highest level since 2021. Economist Ryan Sweet of Oxford Economics told AFP that the United States is seeing slower labour force growth, with less immigration while the native population ages, alongside tepid demand with businesses hesitant to hire. This is partially due to stronger productivity but also business uncertainty as firms grapple with President Donald Trump’s fast-changing tariff policies. “We’re in a new normal, in a new

equilibrium,” said Sweet, adding that this is roughly the level of job growth one should expect going forward. Friday’s hiring number was lower than the 73,000 figure expected by economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal . Among sectors, employment continued trending up in restaurants and bars, health care and social assistance, the Labour Department said. But retail trade lost jobs, with employment dropping in areas like warehouse clubs, supercenters and other merchandise retailers. “Since reaching a peak in January, federal government employment is down by 277,000, or 9.2%,” the department said. In a CNBC interview, White House National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett pointed to US productivity as an encouraging sign beyond job creation. But “job growth in 2025 was the weakest in over a decade, outside of the pandemic”, Senator Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, said in a statement. Navy Federal Credit Union chief economist Heather Long added that 2025 marked the worst year for job gains outside of a recession since 2003. While the overall report appears positive at first glance, Northlight Asset Management’s chief investment officer Chris Zaccarelli expects skeptics to point out the “very meager increase of 50,000 in jobs”.