Underbanked

Wirecard AG has agreed to buy Citigroup’s institutional prepaid card business, giving Germany-based Wirecard its first market foothold in North America.

Credit scores are useful in predicting the likelihood of whether someone will repay a loan. However, banks and others need to provide customers with another number that more accurately assesses their financial health.

Embattled prepaid card issuer Green Dot has officially split the roles of chairman and chief executive by naming a longtime payments industry executive as its new chairman.

A more nuanced view than the two opposing camps supporting or denigrating Dodd-Frank seeks to make banks profitable while ensuring consumers are protected and benefit from economic growth.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should have looked more closely at states like Colorado that protect consumers from true predatory lenders while still preserving access to credit.

Consumers deserve disclosure and the protections enjoyed by payroll card users, but it is critical that regulations do not put providers out of business.

Steps to improve credit access, evangelize for down payment programs and offer borrower counseling can stop and even reverse the decline in homeownership.

The ultimate approval of the CIT-OneWest merger by regulators represents a giant step backwards for the Community Reinvestment Act.

The British giant is making fintech startups its allies as it builds a virtual bank tailored to the needs "of the people at the bottom of the pyramid."

The fintech lab backed by JPMorgan Chase and the Center for Financial Services Innovation has revealed nine winners of a recent startup competition focused on helping consumers plan for financial shocks.

Even though innovative underwriting criteria can help more people get credit, the risks and potential harms of mining social media data to make loan decisions might just be too great.

The prospect of banks and credit unions meeting small-dollar loan demand is at risk under the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's restrictive proposal.

At the same time federal regulators are cracking down on payday loans, another form of short-term credit for low-income Americans is staging an unexpected comeback.

The Bank of England is among the central banks exploring possible uses of blockchain technology. In a recent speech, a BOE official noted how it would open access to central banks beyond commercial banks. "Everyone – including individuals – would be able to hold such balances," he said.

Fintech firms and banks should collaborate on using alternative data sources to qualify more borrowers for small-dollar loans.

Embracing technology that gives innovators access to their platforms will provide banks with the upgrade they sorely need.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposal could have included flexibility for banks to offer payday loan alternatives, but the plan misses the mark.

The prepaid card issuer issued conflicting statements in recent weeks as customers complained that they were unable to access their funds.

We need to adopt a more nuanced view of credit that considers not only the cost of credit, but also the cost of default and the cost of having no credit.

While existing state laws show that payday lending curbs lead to positive outcomes, those laws will still benefit from a strong Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule.