Underbanked

As banks start giving work formerly done by humans to artificial intelligence programs, questions about legal and ethical implications arise. The time to impose values on, and set limits for, the technology is now.

As the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau prepares to finalize its rule on prepaid cards, the agency must clarify that automated overdraft products – a common reason consumers dump their banks – are not allowed on prepaid accounts.

U.S. Bancorp is the latest big bank to offer an overdraft-free account. Skeptics are questioning how many Americans are benefiting from these products, and want banks to do more to market them.

Possible bad outcomes from the slowdown in bank chartering include less financial access in rural areas and further concentration of industry assets in just a few large banks.

Green Dot profits more than doubled to $8 million in the second quarter as revenues rose slightly and expenses ticked down.

In a perfect world, better financial literacy — along with equipping bankers with ethical standards — would make the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau obsolete.

The linchpin of the federal government's payday lending proposal is a credit-reporting system for small-dollar loans created by the private sector, but the kinds of companies that could create it haven't stepped forward.

A less discussed but arguably more important application of the blockchain is to help serve the unbanked masses, including refugees.

Citibank is offering surcharge-free ATM access to the customers of 16 credit unions and minority-owned banks in six cities.

For the second time in six weeks, the online lender Avant is taking steps to reduce the size of its workforce.