Vice Chair Stanley Fischer Is Stepping Down from the Fed

Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer is resigning from his role at the central bank.

In a letter to President Donald Trump Wednesday, Fischer said he was stepping down for “personal reasons.” His resignation will take effect October 13.

Fisher’s term was not set to expire until June of next year. His early resignation means that Trump will have another spot to fill at the Fed.

Fed chair Janet Yellen’s term expires in February. Trump has said he is considering renominating Yellen to the position but is also considering other candidates, including White House economic adviser Gary Cohn.

Fischer’s resignation will leave four of the seven seats on the Fed’s board vacant. Trump has nominated Randal Quarles to fill one of those vacancies but the Senate has not confirmed him yet.

Fischer touted the strength of the economy and improved financial regulations in his resignation letter.

“During my time on the Board, the economy has continued to strengthen, providing millions of additional jobs for working Americans,” Fischer wrote. “Informed by the lessons of the recent financial crisis, we have built upon earlier steps to make the financial system strong and more resilient and better able to provide credit so vital to the prosperity of our country’s households and businesses.

Fischer is 73 years old. He was nominated to the Fed in 2014. He was expected to resign when his term expired but the early resignation caught many Fed watchers by surprise. Fischer has been described as an “elder statesman” of American finance. He is a former vice chairman of Citigroup, a former governor of the Bank of Israel, and former first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund. He also served as the chief economist of the World Bank. For 20 years, he was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.