Category: Saving & Banking
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Debt owed to a federal health agency now carries 11.875 percent interest
The Department of Health and Human Services has published a new interest rate for money owed back to it: 11 7/8 percent a year, or 11.875 percent, on overdue debt covered by the agency’s claims-collection regulations. The rate appears in a Federal Register notice HHS filed on August 28, 2026, and it’s tied to the…
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A credit union under federal conservatorship since July was folded into a lender 3,700 times its size
On July 10, 2026, federal regulators took over a tiny Kansas City credit union with 1,015 members and $2.4 million in total assets. Seven weeks later, that credit union no longer exists on its own. Its accounts now sit inside a lender with 594,689 members and $9.0 billion in assets — a size difference of…
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Cash of $1,000 at a check casher now triggers ID and paperwork in eight border counties
Walk into a check-cashing store in Laredo or Las Cruces this week with a $1,200 paycheck, and the clerk can no longer just hand you cash. As of September 3, 2026, a federal order requires that business to check your government ID, write down the specific number on it, and report the transaction to a…
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Three Federal Reserve officials voted at the last meeting to raise rates
The Federal Reserve’s rate-setting committee met on July 28 and 29, and when the vote was counted, nine officials chose to leave the federal funds rate alone. Three did not agree, and they didn’t want a cut — they wanted the Fed to raise rates. That split matters more than it sounds like it should,…
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No American bank has failed in more than two weeks, and the year’s count is still five
The last bank to close its doors in the United States was Tioga-Franklin Savings Bank, a single-branch lender in Philadelphia holding $68 million in deposits. Pennsylvania regulators shut it down on August 21, 2026, and every account moved overnight to a nearby institution with no interruption in service. That was more than two weeks ago.…
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Auto lenders will start sending borrowers a yearly interest statement once the total passes $600
If you paid $600 or more in interest on a car loan this year, your lender now has to tell you about it in writing — the same way your mortgage company already does every January. The Treasury Department and the IRS finalized the rule on September 4, 2026, closing out months of back-and-forth over…
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Regulators closed a federal credit union outright, and all 183 members keep their money up to $250,000
Federal regulators shut down a small credit union in the St. Louis suburbs this summer, the kind of local financial institution most people never think about until it fails. The National Credit Union Administration liquidated African Diaspora Federal Credit Union in Saint Ann, Missouri, after finding the institution insolvent and operating in an unsafe and…
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More homeowners are 90 days behind on a mortgage than a year ago, at 1.52 percent against 1.29
Homeowners are falling seriously behind on their mortgages at a higher rate than they were a year ago, even as the country’s total mortgage debt actually shrank over the same three months. New data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows the share of mortgage balances sliding into serious delinquency climbed to 1.52…
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The average rate on a credit card balance carried month to month is 22.15 percent
Anyone who ends a billing cycle owing money on a credit card is now paying more than one in five dollars of that balance back in interest over a year, according to the Federal Reserve’s latest count of what banks actually charge. The number covers everyone who doesn’t pay their statement in full, not just…
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Five federal agencies told banks this week they are allowed to say why an account was frozen
When a bank freezes an account, rejects a deposit, or shuts down a customer relationship altogether, the explanation people usually get is nothing at all — a form letter, a dead-end phone call, or a teller who says compliance rules forbid discussing it. On September 2, 2026, five federal financial regulators told banks and credit…
