PayThink

Consumers will have more confidence in the formal system of money transfers once they are given clear information about how much money will actually be available on the receiving end.

Monitoring fraud and deception is an immense undertaking for third-party payment processors and banks. Trying to make them into first responders to various social pathologies is a step too far.

These financially underserved individuals are far from disconnected. They are actually more active users of mobile phones and social media than the population at large.

Continued regulatory gaps in overdraft service put consumers at financial risk and potentially expose them to high, unexpected costs for little benefit.

It's the big events that get chronicled. A branch opening. A new headquarters. A merger.

My wife and I were blessed with six children. The youngest is a senior in high school and two are in college. We received an advertisement from Bluebird for prepaid debit cards for college students. That led to questions in my mind about my credit union's debit cards and prepaid cards.

A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink this week.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau penalized two nonbank mortgage lenders, Mortgage Master and Washington Federal, for failure to properly comply with the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975.

A law intended to make the National Flood Insurance Program sustainable could force many owners out of their homes and hurt the housing recovery.

A lesson for Congress in liquidity risk and market contagion.