Payments

Mounting liabilities are raising the stakes for an economy that has come to rely more and more on high-end consumer spending to power expansion.

New self-regulatory guidelines for credit cards and checking accounts are arriving at a time of deregulation in Washington, D.C.

Rocket Companies and Mesa have both launched credit cards geared that offer homeowners perks and points for paying their mortgage and buying housing-related items.

Sen. Dick Durbin, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, announced he will not seek reelection in 2026, concluding more than four decades in Congress. The Illinois lawmaker leaves behind a notable imprint on U.S. financial policy, particularly regarding swipe fees.

The Treasury will phase out the use of paper checks for most government payments in about six months. The Trump administration says the move will improve efficiency and reduce the cost of payment processing.

The law would have expanded the state's 12% interest rate cap in a manner that would have effectively banned fintech lending in the state.

Wall Street veteran Frank Bisignano pledged at a Senate Finance Committee hearing that he doesn't plan to privatize Social Security.

In comments to reporters, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., underscored what she said was a conflict of interest between Elon Musk's DOGE's actions at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and his business interests with X Money.

The post-pandemic increase in consumers falling behind on their credit card bills seems to be tapering off. "For 2025, we're seeing a lot of stability in delinquencies," an industry researcher said.

President-elect Donald Trump is nominating Frank Bisignano, the chief executive officer of fintech and payments company Fiserv Inc., to be the commissioner of the Social Security Administration.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has significantly raised the transaction threshold for its larger participant rule — which defines which firms will be affected — from 5 million annual payments to 50 million.

The Federal Reserve chair said Fed researchers continue to explore central bank digital currencies to stay current on international payments developments, but emphatically denied that the central bank is considering creating one of its own.

Investment banking fees shot up at the nation's largest bank, thanks to rebounds in M&A and the equity capital markets segment. And despite higher credit costs in the company's card business, a top bank executive expressed confidence in the health of U.S. consumers.

A proposal from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to extend the same protections as credit cards to the fast-growing BNPL industry aims to protect consumers, but it could also stunt the nascent industry's growth, experts say.

The retail giant has scrapped its credit card partnership with Capital One, its second public spat in recent years with a partner bank. Analysts say it may be a sign that Walmart wants to launch its own credit card on what it hopes will be a financial super-app.

The number of borrowers who are at their credit limits is approaching its pre-pandemic level, and the percentage of balances that are sliding into delinquency has hit its highest rate in more than a decade, according to new research. Still, card companies are generally expressing optimism about their credit outlooks.

Max Levchin, CEO of the buy now/pay later lender, said recent tests show young adults prefer interacting with intelligent chatbots over phone-based agents, but the company doesn't foresee major cost savings from generative AI for a few more years.

Net charge-offs at the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank increased by more than 80% in the first quarter compared with a year earlier. BofA executives say that the rising losses were in line with the bank's risk appetite.

The blockbuster merger proposal will be reviewed at a time when the Biden administration is expressing skepticism about consolidation. Its analysis will have to account for markets dominated by both big banks and the likes of Visa and Mastercard.

Payments fraud is the most expensive kind, at $450B; anti-financial-crime execs are the most worried about real-time payments, a survey from Nasdaq and Oliver Wyman found.