NEW YORK (Reuters) – Major U.S. bank executives this week said they extended forbearance programs to millions of credit card, auto loan and mortgage customers who were financially hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic. While that is good news for customers who ... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Tuesday issued its long-awaited payday lending measure that rescinds an Obama-era proposal requiring lenders first ensure a borrower is able to repay them. Consumer advocates blasted the m... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – PwC, Deloitte, KPMG and EY should ring fence auditing in Britain as a separate business by June 2024, their regulator said on Monday in one of the most sweeping changes to the sector globally to improve audit quality. Corporate failures at b... More »
LONDON/PARIS (Reuters) – Sixteen banks from Germany, France and three other euro zone countries on Thursday said a “truly European” payments system was expected to be up and running in 2022 to fully digitalise a region where half of all retail payments are sti... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – The number of people in Britain buying cryptoassets like bitcoin BTC=BTSP and ether has more than doubled over the past year, but many are still unaware they have no protection against mis-selling, the Financial Conduct Authority said on Tue... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve said on Monday it had opened registration for lenders interested in participating in its Main Street Lending Program, launching arguably the most complex program undertaken yet by the U.S. central bank to help keep the ... More »
(Reuters) – The Federal Reserve on Monday launched its latest life raft for U.S. businesses hurt by the coronavirus pandemic. Administered by the Boston Fed, the Main Street Lending Program will offer up to $600 billion in loans through participating lenders t... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Reserve announced Monday it was resuming its normal bank examination activities, after easing back at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic. The Fed announced in March it was reducing some exam activities and focusing o... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Facebook Inc’s WhatsApp messaging service rolled out a system across Brazil on Monday that will allow users to send money to individuals or local businesses within a chat, attaching payment as they would a photo or video. WhatsApp tested t... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. banking regulator announced on Wednesday it had finalized work on a long-running effort to change community lending standards for banks. The new rule from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) is an update to require... More »
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China is expected to stand pat on its benchmark lending rate on Wednesday, after the central bank kept medium-term funding cost for financial institutions steady last week, a Reuters survey of traders and analysts found. Thirty-four respon... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Like the myriad approaches governments are taking to tackle the coronavirus crisis, the way the world’s top banks are calculating their potential losses also differs widely, with puzzling outcomes for investors. These discrepancies are roote... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. jobless claims have exceeded 30 million since the coronavirus outbreak hit the country, wiping out a decade of job gains and sending many Americans scrambling to find work and cash in on government aid. As part of our weekly #AskReute... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – If you were laid off in April, the health insurance from your job may stop at the end of the month. Then what? Rest assured there are options, even if they are all expensive. If you are losing a workplace plan, you will get paperwork expla... More »
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) has declined a request by prominent U.S. senators to provide information about the German lender’s recent business dealings with U.S. President Donald Trump and his family, according to a letter this week seen by ... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two senior U.S. House Democrats on Friday asked the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve to direct at least $5 billion in loans to struggling intercity bus companies because of the coronavirus pandemic. House Ways and Means Committee Chairm... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – In a little over a year, when Americans file their 2020 tax returns, much of what is going on with coronavirus-linked stimulus payments will finally add up. Until then, prepare for confusion. Think you got shorted on the Economic Impact Pa... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – If you got your stimulus payment this week from the IRS and it is still in your account, are you afraid to spend it? Many recipients immediately deployed the money they received as part of the CARES Act – up to $1,200 per adult and $500 pe... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Sara Pauly is not one of those small business owners scrambling to fill out paperwork for part of the more than $350 billion in government aid available through the Paycheck Protection Program or the Economic Injury Disaster Loan. Instead,... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Congressional leaders and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will hold bipartisan negotiations on the contents of a new coronavirus response bill with the goal of reaching a deal by early next week, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Sch... More »
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – As Germany rolls out a 750 billion-euro economic stimulus package, officials and experts are discussing whether German lenders, including Deutsche Bank AG and Commerzbank AG, will be able to weather the economic fallout of coronavirus wit... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s pick for the new watchdog overseeing $2.3 trillion in coronavirus-related fiscal spending is not independent enough to do the job, congressional Democrats said on Saturday. The White House said late on Frida... More »
RIYADH (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia’s King Salman has ordered up to 9 billion riyals ($2.4 billion) to be disbursed to pay part of the wages of private-sector workers to deter companies from laying off staff, the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported on Friday. Th... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Coronavirus lockdowns might have caught a lot of people by surprise last month, but with April’s new billing cycle, it is time for cash-strapped Americans to rethink automatic spending habits. Are you turning off that monthly parking pass?... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – The Bank of England canceled this year’s stress test of major banks on Friday and said it may be hard to implement new global capital rules on time given the focus now on supporting lending to customers hit by the coronavirus epidemic. The d... More »
NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Some Amazon sellers say the online retailer’s abrupt decision to stop receiving non-essential inventory in response to the coronavirus pandemic could strangle the sales they need to make payments on their Amazon loans. The chal... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – When you see soda on sale at the supermarket, do you run screaming into the parking lot in a panic? Or do you buy six? This is the analogy Peter Palion, a certified financial planner in New York, uses to calm worried clients about volatili... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Lives are on hold all over the world as we distance ourselves socially to contain the coronavirus, but bills still pile up. Some countries, like Italy and France, already enacted mortgage and rent relief, but U.S. measures are still being ... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Applications for unemployment insurance are skyrocketing across the United States. In Ohio, the number tripled from last week through Sunday, up to 12,000, according to the state’s governor. Calls to the Unemployment Law Project of Washing... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – George Curtis is facing a severe financial crisis. He has to be out of his Swarthmore College dorm room by Sunday. He lost his campus job and cannot travel home to Montana from the Philadelphia-area liberal arts college because he is not f... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – When Kristin Tassi bought her house in Chicago two years ago, she was disappointed to get an interest rate of 4% on her mortgage. All of her friends had lower rates. Experts said rates were on the way up from that point forward, but Tassi ... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Spoiler alert: None of the useful things you can do about your money right now involve your 401(k). Financial advisers tend to caution long-term retirement investors to stay the course during times of high volatility, like now with financi... More »
(Reuters) – Royal Bank of Canada plans to open a consumer bank in the United States early next year targeting wealthy clients, with the aim of expanding deposits, its chief financial officer told Reuters on Friday after the bank posted first-quarter profit tha... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – When clients tell financial adviser Catherine Valega that they want to invest their money in women, they are not always clear what they mean. To be honest, there is no real answer yet. If you have less than $1 million, investing with a gen... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Fast-growing British digital bank Monzo plans to hire up to 500 people and forecasts it will get 5.5 million users this year, as it prepares to have another crack at charging some customers to turn a profit. The loss-making firm has burned t... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – When former investment manager Ron Cordes started a charitable foundation in 2007, he got frustrated because he could only “do good” when he was actively giving the money away to needy causes. Then Cordes discovered impact investing. “We b... More »
TOKYO (Reuters) – Osaka’s Itami airport is setting up a toilet area for travelling dogs, complete with a pole for them to cock a leg on. The toilet, in a fenced-off yard outside the terminal, will also have a shower and water bowls, operator Kansai Airports sa... More »
ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey has reduced the range and the levels of fees and commissions that banks can charge clients, according to central bank and banking watchdog regulations announced on Monday. The measures will cut the various charges banks can charge f... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Credit card firms must review how they treat customers that have been in persistent debt to help them save up to 1.3 billion pounds a year in lower interest charges, Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority said on Monday. New rules came into f... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The future of employee training involves no embarrassing role-playing in front of new colleagues or boring web modules which take an hour each to click through. For the next wave in workplace learning, get ready to strap on a pair of virtu... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Emotions — and expenses — often run high during a divorce, but people and their bank accounts can bounce back given enough time. A new study from Fidelity Investments, released Tuesday, shows that by five years after a divorce, most people... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Consumer lending is expected to propel profits for big U.S. banks when they unveil fourth-quarter results this week, though stress in corporate lending and uneven capital markets may cast a shadow over results. Balances for individual borr... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s markets watchdog proposed on Thursday a single interest rate for cash savings products, a move it says would bump up interest payments to consumers by 260 million pounds ($340.96 million) a year. The Financial Conduct Authority (FC... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – It is not often that a spending bill in Congress will make regular Americans run to their financial planners for emergency help before the holidays. But the Senate is poised to pass a spending bill on Friday that includes a huge swath of l... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear President Donald Trump’s appeals in three separate cases to prevent his financial records, including tax returns, being handed over to Democratic-led House of Representatives committees and... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Tax-loss harvesting is all about finding losers in your investment portfolio to offset winners so you pay less tax. That is not easy in a year when the S&P 500 is up 26%. “The best-case scenario is to capture losses when the market is down... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two U.S. banking regulators unveiled a proposed overhaul to community lending standards on Thursday, kicking off a contentious policy fight over the proper way to ensure banks are supporting lower-income borrowers where they do business.... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Shares of Capital One Financial Corp (COF.N) could climb significantly if investors look beyond its well-known credit card arm to see the bank within it, according to Barron’s Dec. 7 edition. The U.S. weekly newspaper said Capital One is p... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Friday put a temporary hold on a court ruling that would require records held by Deutsche Bank AG and Capital One Financial Corp to be handed over to Democratic-led congressional panels. ... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. banking regulators said on Tuesday that lenders must have robust compliance tools in place to ensure “responsible use” of non-traditional sources of financial data to help determine whether a potential customer is credit worthy. In ... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. consumer watchdog on Tuesday proposed making permanent an exemption that allows certain banks and credit unions to estimate the international remittance fees they charge consumers in instances when it may be too expensive for th... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Four years ago, PayPal set out to break the Guinness World Record for the most money raised online for charity in 24 hours. Donors gave more than $45.8 million to charities via the payment platform during #GivingTuesday, the annual charita... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Harris Rosen has a chain of eight hotels bearing his name in the Orlando area, but he makes most of his headlines these days for giving away his fortune. The 80-year-old entrepreneur of Rosen Hotels & Resorts, who grew up on the Lower East... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Most people’s basic knowledge of investing is that their portfolio should be a mix of stocks and bonds. That is usually enough to get by in the stock market – pick up a popular S&P 500 index exchange-traded fund or two and you will probabl... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – How interested are people in trading stocks for free? Very. In early October, after TD Ameritrade announced it was switching to zero commissions from $6.95 on most trades, client call volume increased 20% and new client call volume shot up... More »
BEIJING (Reuters) – New bank loans in China fell more than expected to the lowest in 22 months in October, but the drop was likely due to seasonal factors and policymakers are still expected to ramp up support for the cooling economy in coming months. Chinese ... More »
(Reuters) – Apple Inc (AAPL.O) co-founder Steve Wozniak joined in the online debate over accusations of gender discrimination by the algorithm behind the iPhone maker’s credit card, fuelling scrutiny of the newly launched Apple Card. The criticism started on T... More »
PARIS (Reuters) – Two teams of young video gamers from Europe and China will do virtual battle on Sunday – and there’s more than $1 million at stake. The teams will fight it out in blockbuster online game “League of Legends”, in a contest drawing millions of v... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – When Hartmut Braune comes to work in security communications at SAP, he never knows what emergency will land in his inbox. It is a challenging job, compounded by the fact that Braune also coordinates the company’s global Lighthouse Core Te... More »
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – The Dutch central bank said on Tuesday it would require banks to retain 3 billion euros ($3.31 billion) in additional capital to compensate for risks posed by mortgage portfolios. In its autumn report on financial stability, De Nederlands... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s markets watchdog has proposed banning auto dealers and brokers from receiving commission linked to interest rates on loans used to finance car purchases, a step it said would save consumers 165 million pounds ($208.4 million) annua... More »
LONDON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Backers of Facebook Inc’s (FB.O) Libra cryptocurrency project pledged to forge ahead after selecting a five-member board on Monday, shrugging off the latest member defection by online travel company Booking Holding earlier in t... More »
(Reuters) – Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N) is boosting its teams that process mortgage loans to prepare for higher mortgage volumes, changing course after it laid off about 1,000 employees here in the division in 2018, according to a memo viewed by Reuters. Many of ... More »
WARSAW (Reuters) – Polish banks will face costs of 20 billion to 30 billion zlotys ($5.1-$7.6 billion) due to the European Court of Justice’s (ECJ) ruling on Swiss-franc mortgages, Polish rate-setter Eugeniusz Gatnar told news agency PAP in comments published ... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. tax reform is finally catching up with the college financial aid process, and the synchronization is off to a rocky start. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) for the 2010-2021 academic year became available on Oct. 1... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Harvard Business School is known for guiding the next generation of financial leaders through compelling case studies in management, innovation and global intelligence. Now the curriculum includes impact investing, which incorporates posit... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – British-based digital banking app Revolut is set to hire around 3500 staff as it expands into 24 new markets thanks to a new global deal with payments giant Visa Inc, the two companies said on Monday. Revolut, one of a breed of new digital-o... More »
GENEVA (Reuters) – The launch of Facebook’s Libra could be pushed back to tackle the regulatory concerns that have been raised around the world, the head of the organization set up to oversee the cryptocurrency told Reuters. Three months ago, Facebook (FB.O) a... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – If you are seriously ill and homebound, or starting to be prone to forgetfulness, do you have someone you trust with your ATM code to run out and get you some cash? Are you really sure? Elder financial abuse runs the gamut from stranger da... More »
SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Facebook Inc (FB.O) revealed lofty plans to establish a cryptocurrency called Libra in June, but the project quickly ran into trouble with skeptical regulators around the world. Opposition deepened on Friday, when both France... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. government on Thursday charged the founder of reverse mortgage provider Live Well Financial Inc with engineering a $140 million fraud by inflating the value of its bonds, in what he called a “self-generating money machine.” Michae... More »
(This August 21 story corrects to make clear Kiva a nonprofit organisation, not charity, paragraph 1.) By Cooper Inveen (Reuters) – Kiva, a San Francisco-based tech nonprofit organization, is using blockchain to create an online ID database in Sierra Leone all... More »
ZURICH (Reuters) – Credit Suisse (CSGN.S) said on Monday it would invest hundreds of millions of francs in digital services and other parts of its Swiss division by the end of 2021 and said it no longer needed a bigger branch network in its home market than it... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority reminded consumers on Monday that they have only one month left to check if they were mis-sold loan insurance. Britain’s banks have already paid out more than 35 billion pounds ($43.2 billion) in compens... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The cost of borrowing money for college in the United States just got a little bit cheaper. The federal government lowered interest rates for student loans starting July 1. New rates for direct undergraduate loans are 4.53%, down from 5.05... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A truce in the trade war between the United States and China that pushed large-cap stocks to new record highs Monday does not appear to be enough to buoy the shares of small U.S. companies that are struggling under the weight of higher tar... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia’s Big Four lenders are pushing back on the regulator’s plan to require banks make detailed credit checks on borrowers to estimate loan affordability instead of relying on indices, with the No.2 lender saying such checks are not fea... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s fondness for the U.S. Supreme Court could be tested by a series of legal disputes targeting him personally – from his taxes and businesses to his 2016 election campaign – that ultimately may be decided by the jus... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Mortgage rates are nearing historic lows again in the United States, making it an ideal time to buy a home – or refinance. “It’s amazing how many times a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity comes around,” said Keith Gumbinger, vice president of... More »
MILAN (Reuters) – Italian mid-sized lender Creval said on Tuesday it would spin off its bad debts into a separate unit and sell half of them, in order to roughly halve its gross soured loan ratio to below 6.5% in 2023. Presenting a five-year business plan unde... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Investors in Australian mortgage bonds are demanding higher premiums to buy the riskiest tranches of new debt, as a slowing economy stokes concerns a property downturn could get worse and increase home loan defaults. High-yield investors are... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The days of guaranteed pensions from work are long gone, but can annuities make up the difference for millennials? Congress is on the cusp of passing retirement reform legislation that will open 401(k) plans to annuity products which guara... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia’s banking watchdog on Friday said it had imposed stricter licensing conditions on AMP Ltd’s pension fund units following concerns regarding its compliance with superannuation laws, sending its shares down more than 4%. The move com... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – For the Parkers of Houston, Texas, there will be no summer vacation this year because they are still paying off the dent in their finances left by 2017’s Hurricane Harvey. The couple joins a growing list of people forced to renovate or com... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Saving for retirement is such a lofty goal that the U.S. government has always been willing to give tax incentives to encourage people to do more of it. But times change, and the retirement reform bills that are on a fast-track through Con... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Deutsche Bank AG and Capital One Financial Corp will not have to immediately hand over the financial records of U.S. President Donald Trump, three of his children and the Trump Organization, according to a court filing on Saturday. The f... More »
(This May 16 story corrects 10th paragraph to clarify that 96% of cosigns are for undergraduate loans.) By Beth Pinsker NEW YORK (Reuters) – Is your college-bound child a good credit risk? Consider this very carefully before cosigning a private student loan. S... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – If your phone log is anything like mine, the list of incoming scam calls makes it look like you work for the State Department: Sri Lanka, Lithuania, Russia, Bosnia, Benin, Croatia and Sierra Leone. And if you are anything like me, the thou... More »
(Reuters) – U.S. growth appears to be based “exclusively” on government, corporate and mortgage debt and the economy would have contracted if the United States had not added trillions in debt, Jeffrey Gundlach, chief executive of DoubleLine Capital, said in an... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Like many transplants to Chicago, Chris Easton needed to adjust to winter after moving from Atlanta to take a job as a database engineer at the accounting firm EY. Among other work-life skills, Easton, 23, who is on the autism spectrum, le... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Two committees of the Democrat-controlled U.S. House of Representatives on Friday asked to intervene in a lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump, his three oldest children and the Trump Organization seeking to block House subpoenas seekin... More »
MOSCOW (Reuters) – After Western sanctions gutted Russia’s financial system five years ago, a new bank card began appearing in the wallets of many Russians. Now the country is hoping to introduce its cards, known as Mir cards, to foreign markets where Russian ... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Apple Inc said on Monday it will launch a credit card with Goldman Sachs Group Inc this summer that can be used to earn cash back on the purchase of Apple products, but analysts suggest its rewards do not stand out among rivals. The Apple ... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Everyone knows the Golden Rule of business is to pay yourself first. But more than half of small business owners are going months without pay – if they are taking any at all. About a quarter of these entrepreneurs go two to six months with... More »
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The European Central Bank’s fourth round of cheap long-term loans targeted at banks may steer euro zone lenders away from a cliff edge in funding. But it is a symptom of, rather than a cure for, the bloc’s economic malaise that appears to... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – When Laura Hirsch of Keller Texas had to find a rehabilitation center to help her father recover from a difficult surgery in September, the caregiving service Cariloop saved her a whole day. A case manager at Cariloop, based in Richardson,... More »
NEW YORK(Reuters) – Can regular people calculate their state taxes in light of the new U.S. tax law? No way, experts say. “There isn’t a way to figure it out,” said Craig Smalley, an enrolled agent tax preparer in Orlando, Florida. “I’ve worked with clients al... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – One thing we have learned in the United States this tax season: Refunds make Americans happy – and not getting one, or getting a smaller one, makes them mad. The number of refunds for 2018 returns is down 26.5 percent, and the dollar amoun... More »
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India could lose a vital U.S. trade concession, under which it enjoys zero tariffs on $5.6 billion of exports to the United States, amid a widening dispute over its trade and investment policies, people with close knowledge of the matter ... More »
CHICAGO (Reuters – It took 52-year-old social worker Nancy Peterson a combination of five different grants and low interest loans to accumulate $80,000 for the downpayment she needed to become a first-time home buyer in Seattle last summer. Peterson’s modest i... More »
