The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has struck again with an enforcement action against credit card abuse. Previously, CFPB got a full refund for Capital One customers deceived into paying for add-on services on their credit card. Building on that work, CFPB joined with the FDIC to file a similar enforcement action with Discover, another major [...]

You might have guessed that I don’t have a ton of respect for our nation’s regulatory apparatus, particularly in the finance space. Too often, regulators listen to their Wall Street friends over the nuances of the law, are slow to identify abuses and slower still to crack down on them, and when they finally get [...]

Considering how banks got away with submitting false documents to state courts on mortgage and foreclosure issues, why should we be surprised that they brought the same eye for detail to credit card debt collection? We’ve known this for a while – back in March, JPMorgan Chase was found to have robo-signed documents and shredded [...]

The amendment to the Dodd-Frank legislation reducing the cost of interchange fees for debit and credit cards passed with a supermajority in the Senate. It went through the normal process and it won. Now the banks, in a slightly stronger position than during the Dodd-Frank debate, are trying to get the changes delayed, and effectively [...]

The Federal Reserve issued rules that would cut debit fees significantly, fulfilling the promise of Dodd-Frank that these interchange fees would get reduced. This provides a boost to retailers and ultimately consumers and employees, who would see lower prices and reduced pressure to cost-cut. It really impacts the credit card industry, who has been making [...]

The Justice Department reached a settlement with two credit card companies over anti-competitive practices. Under the settlement, Visa and MasterCard would agree not to prohibit businesses from offering their own rebates or discounts from using a certain type of card. DoJ kept their lawsuit going against American Express: “We want to put more money in [...]