Fintech

The Biden administration should widen the scope of its junk fee initiatives and provide small- and medium-size businesses with relief from excessive international payments charges.

The rocky journey and abrupt end of the technology company's fledgling buy now/pay later service underscores ongoing challenges facing fintechs that offer point-of-sale installment loans, and how banks may benefit from the changing BNPL ecosystem.

A $30 billion settlement between Visa Inc., Mastercard Inc. and retailers to cap credit-card swipe fees is likely to be rejected by a federal judge in Brooklyn, a setback in the two decade-long litigation.

PNC has cut its credit card late fees to $8, and Wells Fargo has eliminated the charges on one new card. The moves signal that issuers are already adjusting to a CFPB rule that's currently on hold amid a court challenge.

Fifteen million Americans who owe a combined $49 billion in medical debt would benefit from a proposal by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to scrub medical debts from credit reports and ban their use in underwriting decisions.

Late payments, which have been on a steady rise since 2021, are now climbing at a slower rate or even declining at some major card issuers. Risks remain, but there's 'reason to be cautiously optimistic," one analyst said.

Digital assets have never caught on for mainstream payments, but the card network isn't giving up hope. Its latest effort aims to reduce complexity by learning from the successes of digital wallets.

Though hard times put a dent in profitability, asset quality and net interest margin continued to shine among the list of the best performing publicly traded community banks.

In the U.S., the COVID-19 pandemic and other factors caused a sharp reduction in cash use. But with paper bills still accounting for nearly a fifth of all payments, the option is still far too entrenched to risk extinction.

The e-commerce firm will no longer accept Amex credit cards globally beginning in August, citing the card network's higher-than-average cost of acceptance.