The financial news that actually matters
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has been putting more energy into a message that sounds simple but still trips up many Americans: most bank deposits are protected, but only up to specific limits and only under specific rules. That matters because confusion about deposit insurance tends to surge whenever the banking sector looks shaky, and…
The future of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s attempt to curb overdraft charges is no longer just a fight over one banking rule. It has become an early measure of how far the new administration is willing to go in pulling back consumer regulations that were finalized at the end of the Biden era.For bank…
For many American households, the extra cash cushion built during the pandemic is no longer providing much protection. Stimulus payments, enhanced jobless benefits, and a temporary drop in spending during lockdowns helped many families build up unusually large bank balances in 2020 and 2021. But that cushion has steadily thinned as inflation raised the cost…
For older Americans who still waited on the mail for their monthly benefit check, the federal government’s paper-payment era is effectively over. After years of nudging retirees toward direct deposit, the U.S. Department of the Treasury moved in 2025 to stop issuing paper checks for most federal payments, including Social Security. The change was sold…
Metropolitan Capital Bank & Trust in Chicago became the first U.S. bank to fail in 2026 after Illinois regulators shut it down on Jan. 30 and handed the institution over to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation as receiver. The failure was small by national banking standards, but it still carried a real cost. The FDIC…
The largest U.S. banks shed jobs at the fastest clip in nearly a decade through 2024 and 2025, driven by aggressive investment in artificial intelligence and automation tools designed to cut costs. Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, and their peers filed annual disclosures showing workforce numbers that reflect a sustained contraction, even as revenues held steady…
U.S. banks spent much of 2025 doing something that tends to ripple far beyond bank boardrooms: making it harder for businesses to borrow. By the end of the year, the pattern had become hard to dismiss as a passing response to a single headline or one weak patch of data. The Federal Reserve’s senior loan…
America’s banking industry finished 2025 with a split-screen result. On one side of the ledger, banks remained profitable. On the other, the roster of FDIC-insured institutions kept getting smaller, underscoring how consolidation continues to reshape the sector even in periods that look stable on the surface. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s fourth-quarter banking profile shows…