WASHINGTON -- Federal Reserve interest-rate setters opened their first meeting on Monday with a new chairman.

Ben Bernanke assumes the position held by Alan Greenspan for 18 years as the Federal Open Market Committee began a two-day session.

It's pretty much a given on Wall Street that the central bank will raise the federal funds rate for the 15th straight time when it concludes its meeting on Tuesday.

Of prime interest is the statement accompanying the decision, which analysts will search for clues about the Fed's intentions at a meeting later this year.

Many economists believe the Fed will end its rate-raising campaign this year, but they don't know when.

At Greenspan's last meeting, on Jan. 31, the Fed bumped up a key short-term rate and said that "some further policy firming may be needed."

Economists predict the Fed on Tuesday will boost the funds rate, the interest that banks charge each other on overnight loans, by one-quarter percentage point, to 4.75 percent.

That would mark the 15th such increase since June 2004.

In response, commercial banks would boost their prime lending rate -- for certain credit cards, home equity lines of credit and other loans -- by a corresponding amount to 7.75 percent.

Those moves would leave borrowing costs at their highest in just about five years.