Banking & Credit Cards
How banks, credit cards, and payment systems work. Covers products, rates, fees, regulations, and what consumers need to know to navigate the banking system.
Latest in Banking & Credit Cards
Fidelity details a $15B fraud wave draining savers’ accounts
Fraud targeting Americans’ savings and retirement accounts has surged so sharply that Fidelity Investments, the nation’s largest retirement plan administrator, has escalated its public warnings...
2 major loan defaults deepen losses for private-credit funds
In the span of roughly 90 days, a direct-to-consumer brand aggregator’s loan went from performing to worthless on the books of one publicly traded credit...
Vance task force alleges SBA shielded 562K loans tied to $22.2B fraud
For nearly four years, more than half a million pandemic-era small business loans sat flagged inside the Small Business Administration’s own systems, tagged as potentially...
Chime’s servers went down for a day and 20,000 people couldn’t access their money — now there’s a class action lawsuit alleging the breach was preventable
For roughly 20,000 Chime customers, a single day without server access meant paychecks they couldn’t touch, bills they couldn’t pay, and a customer service line...
Credit card annual fees just crossed $800 at Amex and Chase — and people are still paying them
The American Express Platinum card now costs $695 a year. The Chase Sapphire Reserve sits at $550. And both issuers have layered on so many...
A new credit card charges zero interest, zero fees, and requires no credit check or deposit — here’s how OnePay’s Builder Card actually works
Most credit-building cards come with a catch; secured cards want a deposit upfront and subprime cards pile on annual fees and interest rates north of...
The SAVE student loan plan is dead and the Repayment Assistance Plan launches July 1 — 7.5 million borrowers have 90 days to pick a new plan or get auto-enrolled
For nearly two years, roughly 7.5 million federal student loan borrowers have been stuck in limbo. Their repayment plan, SAVE, was blocked by courts in...
The Credit Card Competition Act has bipartisan backing and Trump’s public support — but banks say it would kill your rewards
If you earn cash back, airline miles, or hotel points every time you swipe a credit card, a bill moving through Congress right now could...
A credit card startup just applied to become a national bank for the first time in 20 years — and it only serves people with bad credit
Mission Lane has spent the past eight years issuing unsecured credit cards to people most banks won’t touch. Now the Richmond, Virginia-based fintech wants to...
Student loan wage garnishments are back after a 5-year pause — 15% of your paycheck if you’re in default
When Keisha Moore, a 34-year-old medical billing clerk in Memphis, opened her pay stub in late April 2026, she found $390 missing. No court date,...
The SAVE plan is officially dead and a new repayment plan launches July 1 — what borrowers in their 20s need to do in the next 70 days
About 70 days from now, on July 1, 2026, a brand-new federal student loan repayment plan goes live. For millions of borrowers in their 20s...
Check fraud now accounts for 30% of all U.S. fraud losses — one group tried to cash a $27 million Treasury check
Federal prosecutors unsealed charges against 16 people accused of running two separate check fraud operations that collectively touched more than $64 million in stolen or...
7.5 million borrowers just lost the SAVE plan — and the Class of 2026 is graduating into the worst student loan landscape in a decade
A borrower earning $40,000 a year with $35,000 in federal student loans could have paid as little as $50 to $100 a month under the...
The Class of 2026 is graduating into the worst student loan landscape in a decade — fewer options, stricter rules, and no more SAVE plan
More than 7 million federal student loan borrowers are being pushed out of the “Saving on a Valuable Education” (SAVE) Plan this summer after the...
A personal assistant forged checks for 7 years to steal $10 million from a retired Wall Street banker — and spent it at Gucci and Cartier
Catalina Corona was hired to make life easier for an elderly couple in New York. Multiple news outlets, including the New York Post, have described...
Americans lost a record $15.9 billion to scams in 2025 — and half of it was crypto fraud
A retired teacher in Ohio watches $340,000 vanish into a fake crypto trading platform. A young professional in Texas loses $50,000 after a months-long romance...
The SAVE student loan plan is officially dead — 7.5 million borrowers have until October to pick a new repayment plan
Millions of federal student loan borrowers who once had some of the lowest monthly payments available are now navigating a repayment system that looks very...
AI can now clone your voice from 3 seconds of audio — the FBI says deepfake financial scams are surging in 2026
The voice on the phone belongs to your daughter. At least, that is what your brain tells you. She says she has been in a...
Credit card annual fees are soaring past $800 — and people keep paying them even as perks shrink
The annual fee on the American Express Platinum Card has climbed three times since 2019, landing at $695 in 2023. Each time, cardholders complained online,...
Premium credit card annual fees are now past $800: here’s when the math stops working
When finance giant American Express raised the Platinum Card’s annual fee to $895, it framed the move as an upgrade. New perks arrived alongside the...