The financial news that actually matters
The monthly fee on a standard checking account at a U.S. bank has never been higher. In 2024, the average maintenance charge on a non-interest checking account hit $15.45, according to Bankrate’s annual checking account survey, which has tracked bank pricing since 1998. That works out to $185.40 a year for customers who don’t meet…
Millions of Americans who filed their 2025 federal tax returns expecting a paper refund check are waiting for money that will never show up in their mailbox. Starting October 1, 2025, the IRS stopped issuing most paper refund checks to individual taxpayers. If you filed without valid direct deposit information, your refund is not lost,…
Every time you tap your card at a grocery store, a gas pump, or a coffee counter, a slice of what you pay goes not to the merchant but to the bank that issued your card. In Illinois, a new state law was supposed to start shrinking that slice on July 1, 2026. With 39…
For years, business owners in legal but politically sensitive industries have described the same experience: a phone call or a letter from their bank, sometimes with little explanation, informing them that their accounts were being closed. Firearms dealers, cryptocurrency startups, adult entertainers, and advocacy groups on both ends of the political spectrum have reported being…
About two years ago, roughly 8 million federal student loan borrowers were placed into administrative limbo. Courts blocked the SAVE repayment plan before it could fully launch, servicers stopped collecting payments, and monthly bills dropped to zero. Now that limbo has an expiration date. The U.S. Department of Education has confirmed that loan servicers will…
A graduate student borrowing $50,000 in federal loans this fall will pay roughly $8,000 more in interest over a standard 10-year repayment than a classmate who borrowed the same amount in 2023-24. That gap is the direct result of a rate reset taking effect July 1, 2026: new Direct Unsubsidized loans for graduate and professional…
A federal student loan borrower earning $40,000 a year with $35,000 in debt was paying roughly $120 a month under the SAVE repayment plan, according to estimates from the Department of Education’s Loan Simulator. Under the Standard Repayment Plan, that same borrower would owe about $370. That is not a hypothetical scenario playing out years…
A server at a Chicago restaurant earns a $20 tip on a credit card. Before that money reaches her, the bank that issued the customer’s card skims a percentage off the top as an interchange fee. Starting July 1, 2026, Illinois law was supposed to stop banks from collecting that cut on tips and sales…
Maria Gonzalez, a home health aide in San Antonio, pulled her credit report in April 2026 and found the same $4,200 emergency-room bill that had dragged her score below 600 two years earlier. A federal rule finalized in January 2025 was supposed to strip medical collections from credit reports nationwide. Months later, a Texas judge…
A customer with $25,000 sitting in a standard savings account at JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, or Wells Fargo will collect roughly $98 in interest over the next 12 months. Move that same balance to a high-yield online savings account at a bank like Marcus by Goldman Sachs, Ally, or Capital One 360, and the…