Debit Card | featured news

A gang of cyber-criminals stole $45 million in a matter of hours by hacking their way into a database of prepaid debit cards and then draining cash machines around the globe, federal prosecutors said Thursday.

American Express and Wal-Mart announced Tuesday that their prepaid debit card accounts will now be backed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., making them one of the last major providers to sign on to the government backstop. Read full article >>

South Carolina Governer Nikki Haley announced Friday that, “This is not a good day for South Carolina.” The bad news was having to admit a massive security breach in the State’s Department of Revenue that resulted in the theft of 3.6 million social security numbers and 387,000 credit/debit card numbers (only 16,000 of which, it is believed, were unencrypted,) This incident affects more than three-quarters of South Carolina’s 4.6 million population.

There’s a big change taking place. Many young people and those who want to avoid, or don’t qualify for, traditional financial products are choosing to use prepaid debit cards. A new study from Javelin Strategy and Research finds that the use of prepaid cards rose by about 18 percent last year. About 13 percent of the households in this country had one of these cards in 2011. Debit cards linked to checking accounts are still significantly more popular than prepaid cards. But the Javelin report points out that prepaid cards are “one of the few major financial products that has grown in usage in the past year.” In fact, the number of Americans with credit cards, checking accounts, and bank debit cards is actually falling.

Bank of America Corp. is scrapping its plan to charge a $5 monthly debit card fee. The bank's decision to drop the fee came after a roar of customer outrage in recent weeks over the fee. Other major banks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co., already canceled tests of similar debit card fees last week.

Bank of America is reconsidering its plan to charge $5 monthly debit card fees after public outrage has caused several other large banks to drop their own plans to charge similar fees.

Sometimes, the big banks can hear their customers. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. has decided that it won't charge customers who use their debit cards to make purchases.

Its planned $5 fee for using a debit card has driven out into the open other fees that were long hidden to consumers. This may be a very unpopular thing to say about Bank of America and its planned $5 monthly debit card fee, but it's worth saying anyway: Thank you, Bank of America.

President Barack Obama launched a broad onslaught against banks on Thursday, tapping into public anger over rising fees to garner populist support ahead of his 2012 re-election campaign.

President Obama slammed Bank of America’s $5 debit card card fee in an interview with ABCnews.com and Yahoo on Monday, calling the charge “not good business practice.”