Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
Congress quietly stripped away one of the most visible ATM fee warnings over a decade ago, and most people still have no idea. Before 2012, federal law required cash machines to display a physical sticker or placard on the outside of the terminal alerting users to surcharges. That external notice is no longer required. Fee…
Banks with more than $1 billion in assets still collected $5.83 billion in overdraft and nonsufficient funds fees in 2023, even after a dramatic industry pullback that cut those charges by more than half compared to pre-pandemic levels. That decline has saved consumers an estimated $6 billion a year, yet three categories of “zombie” fees…
Student loan borrowers who dealt with Navient’s servicing failures are now finding unexpected checks in their mailboxes, drawn from a $100 million redress fund established by a federal enforcement settlement. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ordered the payments after a seven-year legal battle that ended with Navient banned from servicing federal student loans and required…
The federal government will stop issuing paper checks for most payments starting September 30, 2025, a hard deadline that could reshape how tens of millions of Americans receive money from Washington. But the executive order driving this change is only the most visible pressure point on a payment method already in steep decline. Between surging…
Commercial real estate lenders across the United States are abandoning the patient approach that defined the post-pandemic period and are now demanding that borrowers settle their debts or face consequences. The delinquency rate for office building owners hit a record high last month, and the era of quietly rolling over troubled loans has given way…
The Trump administration’s Education Department has identified thousands of additional borrowers who may qualify for student loan discharge, according to a recent court filing in ongoing federal litigation. The updated eligibility figures, submitted as part of a sequence of status reports in the case brought by the American Federation of Teachers, suggest that years of…
Companies across the consumer goods sector are raising prices after holding the line through the holiday shopping season, and the latest inflation data suggests the effects are already showing up in official measurements. The January 2026 Consumer Price Index report confirmed that price growth accelerated from where it stood at the close of 2024, adding…
X stunned subscribers in early 2025 by nearly doubling the monthly cost of its Premium+ plan from $22 to $40, a move that arrived with little warning and significant confusion over what users were actually being charged. The increase, which followed a separate price hike just weeks earlier, signals an aggressive monetization strategy tied to…
Costco is enforcing stricter entrance protocols that require members to scan a membership card before stepping onto the warehouse floor at warehouses rolling out the new system. The change signals a broader effort by the retailer to crack down on nonmembers who have long found ways to slip through the doors, and it carries real…
Parents who borrowed for their children’s education are staring at a brief, high‑stakes window to lock in cheaper student loan payments and long‑term forgiveness. Policy changes are closing off a popular workaround that let Parent PLUS borrowers reach income‑driven plans that were never designed for them. Those who move quickly can still reshape their debt…