Banking & Credit Cards
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Latest in Banking & Credit Cards
The defaulted borrowers aren’t who you’d expect — the average student loan defaulter is 40 years old and was making payments before the pandemic paused collections
When federal student loan collections officially restarted in May 2025, the government was not chasing down recent college dropouts. It was coming for people like...
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
A borrower who signs a federal Direct Loan promissory note on July 1, 2026, will face a choice that did not exist a month earlier:...
3.6 million student loan borrowers defaulted since October — and the average defaulter is 40 years old and was current on payments before the pandemic
They paid on time for years. Then the system restarted, and millions of them stopped. Since federal student loan payments resumed in October 2023 after...
Parent PLUS loan rates climb to 9.07% on July 1 — the cost of borrowing to send your kid to college just hit its highest point since 2007
A parent borrowing $30,000 this fall to help cover a child’s tuition will owe roughly $382 a month for the next decade and pay about...
Scam losses doubled in a single year and 40 million Americans were targeted — the average victim now loses more than twice what they did in 2025
A grandmother in Ohio wires $8,000 to someone she believes is her grandson, arrested and desperate for bail money. A college student in Texas watches...
Federal student loan rates jump to 6.52% on July 1 — the highest borrowing rate for undergrads in three years
A college freshman enrolling this fall and borrowing the maximum federal Direct Loan will pay a fixed interest rate of 6.52%, the highest undergraduate borrowing...
Credit card delinquencies hit 13.1%, the highest in 16 years — but total balances actually dropped $25 billion last quarter
More than one in every eight credit card accounts at the nation’s largest banks is now at least 90 days past due. That is not...
Student loan delinquencies jumped to 10.3% — the highest since 2020 — and defaulted borrowers are also falling behind on credit cards, auto loans, and mortgages
For more than three years, millions of Americans with federal student loans made no payments at all. The pandemic-era freeze, which began in March 2020...
The FBI says bank spoof callers drained $40,000 from a Chase customer — the scam used Chase’s own phone number on caller ID
The phone rang, and the screen showed Chase Bank’s name and number. The voice on the other end identified herself as a fraud department representative...
Parent PLUS loan rates climb to 9.07% on July 1 — the cost of borrowing to send your kid to college just hit its highest point since 2007
A parent borrowing $30,000 through the federal PLUS loan program for the 2025-2026 school year will pay roughly $382 a month for 10 years and...
Fake EZ-Pass and toll-road texts are the fastest-growing scam in America — imposter fraud losses hit $3.5 billion last year
The message that landed on a New Jersey commuter’s phone last spring looked like any routine toll notice: “Your E-ZPass account has an unpaid balance...
The best high-yield savings account still pays 4.10% APY — and the new Fed chair taking over today hasn’t signaled a single rate cut
Kevin Warsh walked into the Federal Reserve’s Eccles Building on May 14, 2026, as the most hawkish new chair the central bank has had in...
Scam losses doubled in the past year and nearly 40 million Americans were targeted — the average victim now loses more than twice what they did a year ago
When the Federal Trade Commission published its annual fraud report in March 2025, one number jumped off the page: $12.5 billion in consumer losses for...
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
A 54-year-old woman in Arizona picks up the phone and hears her son’s voice, panicked, saying he’s been in a car accident and needs bail...
The new student loan repayment plan launches July 1 — it caps payments at 10% of income and takes 30 years to forgive
Roughly 8 million federal student loan borrowers who were enrolled in the now-defunct SAVE plan are about to land in a new repayment structure they...
TikTok hashtags like #CreditHacks grew 162% in one year — and 70% of early auto loan defaults are now tied to fraudulent applications
In May 2026, Frank McKenna, chief fraud strategist at Point Predictive, told attendees at the firm’s annual Auto Lending Fraud Summit that the industry was...
Fake EZ-Pass and toll-road texts are the fastest-growing scam in America — imposter fraud losses hit $3.5 billion last year
A North Carolina driver gets a text about a $6.99 unpaid toll on a road she drives every weekday. A Colorado commuter sees a nearly...
Fidelity flagged a $15 billion fraud wave targeting Americans’ savings — scammers now send 100,000 texts a day, and AI voice clones need just 3 seconds of audio
A retired teacher in Ohio picks up the phone and hears her grandson’s voice, panicked, saying he’s been in a car accident and needs bail...
The best high-yield savings account pays 4.10% APY today — and zero rate cuts are priced in for 2026, so that number isn’t going anywhere
A savings account paying 0.39% earns you about $39 a year on a $10,000 deposit. Move that same cash to a high-yield savings account paying...
Subprime auto loan delinquencies just hit a 32-year record — and unemployment is 4.3%, not 9% like the last time car defaults were this bad
Picture a borrower with a 520 credit score who financed a used pickup in 2023 at 14% interest. The monthly payment: $587. Today that borrower...