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
Student loan wage garnishment restarts this fall — 5 million defaulters face an automatic 15% paycheck cut, and no court order is required
Sometime this fall, millions of Americans could open a pay stub and find a chunk of their income missing. The federal government is preparing to...
The Education Department quietly paused student loan wage garnishment through July — 5.3 million defaulted borrowers won’t have paychecks touched yet, despite January’s warnings
A federal employee earning $45,000 a year and in default on student loans could lose roughly $260 per paycheck to Administrative Wage Garnishment, the government’s...
Fidelity is flagging a $15 billion fraud wave hitting Americans’ savings — scammers send 100,000 spoof texts a day, and AI clones a voice in 3 seconds
The text message looked routine: a $4.15 unpaid toll, a link to settle it, and a warning about a $50 late fee. Scenarios like this...
Older Americans lost $4.3 billion to investment, romance, and impersonation scams last year — nearly twice what younger adults lost, and the median per-victim loss tripled
In March 2024, the Department of Justice announced criminal charges against more than 400 defendants accused of stealing over $900 million from older Americans. The...
Senior scam losses over $100,000 now make up 68% of all elder-fraud dollars — a five-fold jump since 2020, even though most victims never report
A retired teacher wires $140,000 to what she believes is a government-backed investment platform. A widower drains his IRA after a caller claiming to be...
Federal student loan rates jump to 6.52% on July 1 — a $20,000 undergrad loan now costs $233 a month for ten years, up from $210 last year
A college freshman borrowing the maximum federal loan this fall will pay more for that money than any undergraduate has since at least 2013. New...
The new student loan repayment plan launches July 1 — it caps payments at 10% of income, takes 30 years to forgive, and replaces every IDR plan
Starting July 1, 2026, the federal government will begin replacing every income-driven student loan repayment plan with a single new option. It is called the...
Fidelity is now flagging a $15 billion fraud wave hitting Americans’ savings — scammers send 100,000 spoof texts a day and AI clones a voice in 3 seconds
In January 2025, a finance worker in Hong Kong wired $25 million after joining a video call with what appeared to be his company’s chief...
Parent PLUS loan rates climb to 9.07% on July 1 — borrowing $40,000 for college now costs $507 a month for 10 years
A parent who borrows $40,000 through the federal PLUS program for the 2026-27 school year will owe roughly $507 every month for the next decade,...
Federal student loan rates jump to 6.52% on July 1 — the highest rate for undergrads in three years, with no relief from the Treasury market in sight
The interest rate on new federal student loans for undergraduates will hold near its highest level in over a decade when the 2026-2027 academic year...
Top high-yield savings accounts still pay up to 5% APY — but the national average just dropped to 0.38%, so most savers are leaving 13x their interest on the table
When the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation published its national rate benchmark for April 2026, the average savings account yield had slipped to 0.38%, according to...
Dubai police raided 9 pig butchering compounds last month — 275 arrests, and U.S. authorities call it the biggest crypto scam crackdown of the decade
Across nine buildings scattered through Dubai, hundreds of people sat at screens running what looked like a customer service center. They messaged strangers on dating...
The new student loan repayment plan launches July 1 — caps payments at 10% of income, takes 30 years to forgive, and replaces every IDR plan
If you’re one of the roughly 11 million federal student loan borrowers enrolled in an income-driven repayment plan, your plan is about to disappear. SAVE,...
Parent PLUS loan rates climb to 9.07% on July 1 — borrowing $40,000 for college now costs $507 a month for 10 years
A parent who borrows $40,000 through a federal Direct PLUS loan for the 2026-2027 school year will pay roughly $508 every month for a decade...
Total consumer fraud losses hit $15.9 billion in 2025, up 33% from 2024 — and the FTC now gets 3 million fraud reports a year
Total consumer fraud losses hit $15.9 billion in 2025, up 33% from 2024 — and the FTC now gets 3 million fraud reports a year...
Federal student loan rates jump to 6.52% on July 1 — and the 30-year Treasury at 5% guarantees next year’s class will pay even more
A college freshman signing loan paperwork this fall will pay 6.52% interest on every dollar borrowed from the federal government, a rate that sticks for...
Credit-card APRs hit 22.12%, the highest average in three decades — and a 10% interest cap bill has been stalled in Congress for six months
Every month, roughly half of American credit-card holders open a statement showing interest charges calculated at rates that have never been this high. The Federal...
The Education Department predicts 4 million more borrowers will default this year — pushing the total to 1 in 4 Americans with federal student debt
Sometime in the next few months, a federal employee earning $45,000 a year could open a paycheck and find that 15 percent of her disposable...
5 million student loan borrowers are in default — and the Treasury can now garnish their wages, tax refunds, and even Social Security checks to collect
The federal government can take money from your paycheck without a court order. It can intercept your tax refund before it ever reaches your bank...
Fidelity flagged a $15 billion fraud wave targeting Americans’ savings — scammers send 100,000 texts a day and AI voice clones need just 3 seconds of audio
The text message looks like it came from your bank. The voicemail sounds exactly like your daughter, panicked and begging for money. Neither is real....