Category Archives: Credit cards

Wolf Richter: The State of the American Debt Slaves, Q3 2018

Consumer debt continues to grind upwards.

Michael Hudson: 10 Years Since Lehman Brothers Bankruptcy – Did the Economy Really Recover?

Michael Hudson discusses the economic impact of not writing down debts in the wake of the crisis.

Don Quijones: Credit-Cardholders & Bank Customers Burned Again as New IT Chaos Breaks Out in the UK

Another IT outage in the UK serves as pushback to the war on cash, with even the ECB conceding it doesn’t foresee a totally cashless society, leaves those relying on credit cards alone to make payments vulnerable.

America’s Subprime Economy

This so-called expansion is more and more brought to you by subprime borrowings.

Don Quijones: Consumers Stubbornly Cling to Cash, after Multiple IT Fiascos & Payment Systems Outages

More consumer pushback in the war on cash: An industry dogged by non-believers who fret about privacy and fraud.

Wall Street Journal Hyping Amazon Banking: “Ridiculous, Ridiculous, Ridiculous”

The Wall Street Journal gets itself duped into publishing some particularly flaky, um, nebulous, um, aspirational Amazon banking ideas.

FinTech and Banks

Why FinTech will not be as disruptive as its promoters would have you believe.

PayPal Demonstrates What Happens to Former Tech Unicorns Which Get Lame

PayPal is no longer getting away with the sort of things it could as a payment processor newbie.

Amar Bhide: The Case for Traditional Banking

Amar Bhide gives a clearly-written, compelling argument against a supposed banking “innovation,” securitization.

Trump Gets Chance to Reshape CFPB

Trump will soon name a replacement for CFPB director Richard Cordray; rule-making and enforcement priorities will become more bank-friendly.

New EPA Lawsuit Policy Advances Trump’s Deregulatory Agenda

Trump deregulatory agenda advances, via agency decisions, and a new EPA lawsuit policy to stymie regulation by litigation.

RIP, CFPB Mandatory Arbitration Ban

Trump signs resolution overturning CFPB’s mandatory arbitration ban– thus killing the agency’s most pro-consumer initiative to date.

India’s Demonetization Experiment Fails to Demonetize: Cash Comes Full Circle

Cash withdrawals from Indian ATM machines are nearly back to the level of just before Modi’s demonetization shock.

Cybersecurity Ain’t the Only Game in Town: The Scams Multiply

Cybersecurity is much in today’s news, but it’s not the only source of scams– which are much more omnipresent than in the past.

Bill Black: Massachusetts First to Sue Equifax Over Massive Hack

Several government agencies and at least 34 state attorneys general have opened probes into the Equifax data-breach scandal–‘the gift that keeps on giving,’ says Bill Black.