The financial news that actually matters
The Banking & Regulation section covers major updates in banking systems, financial regulations, account policies, and institutional changes. It explains how banks operate, how new rules affect consumers, and what policy changes mean for everyday financial decisions.
Setting up who inherits a bank account does not always require a will, a lawyer, or a trip through probate court. A simple beneficiary designation, commonly called a payable-on-death or POD form, lets an account holder name a person to receive the money directly when the account holder dies. The form takes minutes to complete…
A cashier’s check can clear a bank’s own availability schedule, show up as spendable money in an account, and still bounce weeks later once the bank that issued it discovers the check was never good. That gap between money looking available and money actually being final is not a bank error; it is built into…
Money in a credit union account carries federal insurance, but it does not come from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Credit unions are insured through the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund, created by Congress and run by an entirely separate agency, the National Credit Union Administration. The two systems land on a nearly identical…
A power of attorney exists so a trusted agent can step in and pay bills, move money, or manage an account the moment an aging relative can no longer do it alone. Banks and credit unions sometimes refuse to honor a valid one anyway, most often by insisting the document has to sit on the…
A medical or dental office that offers to put a big bill on a special financing card with “no interest” for a year or more can sound like a lifeline. For patients who pay the balance off exactly on schedule, it works as advertised. For everyone else, the same offer carries a trap built into…
Adding a spouse, an adult child, or a caregiver to a bank account is one of the most common financial arrangements older Americans make, and it usually seems harmless. The account becomes shared for convenience: either owner can pay bills, manage money, or step in if the other cannot. What far fewer people realize is…
Most people assume the money in a checking or savings account is theirs alone until they choose to move it. For customers who also owe the same bank on a loan or credit line, that assumption has a large exception. Under a long-standing principle called the right of setoff, a bank can reach into a…
A federal rule change finalized this spring puts a small piece of homeowner income at risk in fourteen states and territories: the interest that banks have been required to pay on the money held in mortgage escrow accounts. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency concluded that federal law lets national banks decide whether…
A small Philadelphia savings bank has become the fifth federally insured lender to fail in 2026, a modest but steady drip of closures that tends to unsettle depositors even when their own money is never actually at risk. The reason most customers lose nothing is federal deposit insurance, which protects balances up to a set…
Ten state attorneys general have gone to federal court to block a pair of rules that would let national banks stop paying interest on the money homeowners set aside each month for property taxes and insurance. The coalition filed suit on August 11, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, arguing…
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