JP Morgan Chase’s annual report makes a persuasive argument for the profitability of bank branches.

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Increasingly, when I talk about prepaid cards with consumer advocates, they ask a similar question: “What is a good prepaid card?”

The consumer advocates are right to ask this question. I think it is the same question that most folks ask themselves when they go shopping for their own prepaid card. But it is easier asked (more…)

On April 27th, the FDIC shuttered Palm Desert National Bank and arranged through a mix of government subsidy and private investment that the bank’s operations would be assumed by Pacific Premier Bank.  This presented perhaps the closest call to date for an event that might test the ability of the FDIC to deliver on its promise to repay depositors of a failed bank.

Prepaid deposits will not be in danger this time. Moreover, the current location of those (more…)

Post-Durbin, many issuers of prepaid debit cards have introduced higher fees upon their cardholders when they make a purchase with their PIN, but new data from the Federal Reserve shows that two-tiered pricing schedules are out-of-synch with the empirical results.

On May 1st, the Fed published a report on its examination of actual interchange prices on a per-transaction basis. The data compared signature transactions with PIN transactions. Networks (more…)

JP Morgan Chase says that it will offer a new prepaid debit card. Chase says that the Liquid card will be piloted in 200 branches.

I will be waiting and watching to see how much business this card will take from the entrenched national players like NetSpend and Green Dot. Certainly, it is an attractive card. It is very likely (more…)