Personal Finance Advice and Commentary

JP Morgan Chase is changing bank policies to try to help protect customers from payday lenders’ aggressive practices.

The Better Business Bureau of the Mid-South, or BBB, is warning consumers about a magazine subscription service that allegedly debited consumers’ bank accounts without their permission, supposedly after mailing out notices about automatic renewals of magazine subscriptions. The company, Global Subscription Services, has an F rating with the BBB and operates with a Memphis, Tenn.,

Minority-owned community banks are vital institutions in the places where they do business, which are often under-served by financial services firms. That was the main point of remarks by John Walsh, acting comptroller of the currency at the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, at a recent interagency conference on minority-owned depository institutions.

Recipients of certain federal government benefits should soon get some additional protection from creditors who want to seize the direct-deposited funds for repayment of debt. Federal law already prohibits creditors from taking government benefits out of checking accounts to satisfy unpaid debts. However, creditors have used court orders to freeze the accounts so that the

Banks and their customers don’t exactly see eye to eye when it comes to consumers’ attitudes about banks’ reputation and trustworthiness. That’s the key finding of one recent survey on the subject. The difference between consumers’ and bankers’ impressions was a matter of 44 points on the most recent biannual Index of Bank Sentiment, created

Paying a tax bill with a credit card has long been an accepted practice by American taxpayers. Now Uncle Sam is working to expand plastic tax practices. This time, though, he wants people without bank accounts to try the federal government’s new Visa debit card as a way to receive their tax refunds. Just in time

The FDIC’s 3rd quarter earnings report showed bank profits are up and the banking industry is on more secure footing than last year. One small problem, though: the FDIC’s list of banks at risk of failure has grown from 829 in the second quarter to 860 in the third quarter, the highest level since the

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is on a mission to identify bank accounts that are safe and affordable for underserved banking customers, yet still profitable for banks that offer them. To that end, the agency recently tapped nine banks, varying in size, location and business model, to participate in a case study by offering such

Savings accounts, long a mainstay of many people’s financial lives, may no longer be a good deal. That’s according to a recent Bankrate.com report, “The hidden cost of savings accounts,” by Christina Couch, who writes that “savings accounts can burden consumers with low return rates, hidden fees and surprise penalties.” The story suggests that consumers might

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., or FDIC, has announced two “templates” for basic checking or debt-card and savings accounts that would be appropriate and affordable for low- and moderate-income people, a category that could be defined to include a large swath of the consumer population. The templates, designated as Figure 1 and Figure 2 in