KEN SWEET

AP Business Writer

Visa’s fiscal third-quarter profits rise 9% as payments become increasingly digital

Payment processing giant Visa Inc. said its fiscal third-quarter profits rose 9% on an adjusted basis as it benefits from consumers and businesses moving their payments from cash to credit and debit cards.

US banks to begin reporting Russian assets for eventual forfeiture under new law

The Treasury Department is ordering the nation’s banking industry to start disclosing its holdings of Russian assets, with the goal of eventually seizing those billions of dollars in assets and selling them to aid the devastated Ukrainian economy.

Cardmember spending drives American Express second-quarter profits soaring 39%

American Express said Friday second-quarter profits jumped 39% as the credit card company benefitted again from a broad increase in cardmember spending as well as more of its customers carrying a balance.

Capital One offers $265B benefit plan to appease regulators for its planned purchase of Discover

Capital One said Wednesday it plans to offer $265 billion in lending, investing and philanthropy projects as part of its $35 billion merger with Discover Financial.

Bank of America Q2 profits drop as higher interest rates slow down lending

Bank of America said Tuesday its profits fell in the second quarter, as higher interest rates ate into expenses, including its large consumer banking franchise.

Goldman Sachs profits more than double in second quarter as dealmaking comes back on Wall Street

Goldman Sachs has posted a 150% jump in its second quarter profits. Its bottom line was helped by a resurgence of dealmaking and underwriting that has revived investment banking after the slowdown of the previous couple years.

Big bank quarterly results show signs of consumers slowing down spending

Signs of consumers slowing down spending and falling behind on their bills weighed down shares of the big banks on Friday.

Government fines Citigroup $136 million for failing to fix longstanding internal control issues

A pair of government regulators slapped Citigroup with a $135.6 million fine on Wednesday, saying the bank has made insufficient progress in resolving longstanding internal control and risk issues.

After 32 years as a progressive voice for LGBTQ Jews, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum heads into retirement

For more than three decades, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum has led the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ synagogue through the myriad ups and downs of the modern gay rights movement.

Documenting the history of American Express as an in-house historian

Ira Galtman is part of a small community of corporate archivists. They are historians, cataloguers and documentarians for large companies.

AmEx buys dining reservation company Tock from Squarespace for $400M

American Express will acquire the dining reservation and event management platform Tock from Squarespace for $400 million cash.

Biden to nominate Christy Goldsmith Romero as FDIC chair after abrupt departure of predecessor

President Joe Biden will nominate Christy Goldsmith Romero to replace Martin Gruenberg as head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Book Review: ‘Swole’ explores what masculinity could be in a hyperconnected, TikTok-imaged world

Author Michael Brodeur takes the gym too seriously, and not seriously at all at the same time, in his book “Swole: The Making of Men and the Meaning of Muscles.”

Apple Pay will have more payment options this fall and will also welcome Windows, Chrome users

Apple Inc. plans to add several new features to Apple Pay and Apple Wallet later this year that will more deeply integrate financing, rewards, and buy now, pay later options into the iPhone when consumers shop on their phones.

Visa’s Mark Nelsen wants to make your plastic credit card obsolete

Nelson spoke to The Associated Press about what Visa, the world’s largest payment processor, is changing to payment processing in the U.S. and elsewhere around the world over the coming year. The biggest changes in the U.S. will be allowing Americans to access multiple accounts from the same bank fr

Coffee, sculptures and financial advice. Banks try to make new branches less intimidating

After years of closing or mostly neglecting physical bank branches across the U.S., the nation’s largest banks are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on refurbishing old locations or building new ones, and in the process changing the look, feel and purpose of the local bank branch.

Online marketplace eBay to drop American Express, citing fees, and says customers have other options

Online marketplace behemoth eBay said it plans to no longer accept American Express, citing what the company says are “unacceptably high fees” and that customers have other payment options to shop online.

Ryan Salame, part of the ‘inner circle’ at collapsed crypto exchange FTX, sentenced to prison

A federal judge has sentenced former FTX executive Ryan Salame to more than seven years in prison. He is the first of the lieutenants of failed cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried to receive jail time for their roles in the 2022 collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange.

Abrupt shutdown of financial middleman Synapse has frozen thousands of Americans’ deposits

The bank accounts of tens of thousands of U.S. businesses and consumers have been frozen in the aftermath of the abrupt shutdown and bankruptcy of financial technology company Synapse, which acts as a middleman between financial technology companies and banks.

Using AI, Mastercard expects to find compromised cards quicker, before they get used by criminals

Mastercard says it expects to be able to discover that your credit or debit card number has been compromised well before it ends up in the hands of a cybercriminal.

The White House says FDIC chairman to step down following report on agency’s toxic workplace culture

The chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation will step down from his post once a successor is appointed.

Vindicated by Supreme Court, CFPB director says bureau will add staff, consider new rules on banks

Since its creation roughly 14 years ago, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has faced lawsuits, political and legal challenges to the idea of whether the Federal Government’s aggressive consumer financial watchdog agency should be allowed exist at all.

Changes from Visa mean Americans will carry fewer physical credit, debit cards in their wallets

Visa has announced major changes to how its credit and debit cards will operate in the U.S. Features in the works will lead to Americans to carry fewer physical cards in their wallets and make the 16-digit credit or debit card number printed on every physical card increasingly irrelevant.

Federal judge temporarily halts Biden plan to lower credit card late fees to $8

A federal judge in Texas temporarily halted a plan by the Biden administration to lower late fees on credit cards to $8 that was slated to go into effect next week.

JPMorgan’s Dimon hopes for soft landing for US economy but says stagflation is a possible scenario

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon says he’s hopeful the Federal Reserve can bring down inflation without causing a recession but wouldn’t rule out more troubling possibilities, such as stagflation.

American Express profits jump 34%, helped by jump in new customers, higher spending

Credit card giant American Express posted a 34% jump in its first quarter profits on Friday, helped by more customers spending on its namesake cards as well as more customers keeping a balance on the cards.

Bank of America’s Q1 profits fall 18% on higher expenses, charge-offs

Bank of America said its first-quarter profits fell 18%, as the bank dealt with rising expenses due to the impact of higher interest rates. But the results beat analysts’ estimates.

A strong quarter for Wall Street lifts Goldman’s first-quarter results

Goldman Sachs said Monday it saw a double-digit rise in its first-quarter profits, lifted broadly by the stock and bond markets’ performances in the first months of the year.

Big banks warn of uncertain year ahead after mixed financial performances in the first quarter

Big banks warned of an uncertain year ahead after mixed financial results during the first quarter in an environment of stubbornly high inflation and geopolitical clashes in Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere.

JPMorgan’s Dimon warns inflation, political polarization, wars creating risks not seen since WWII

The nation’s most influential banker, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, told investors that he continues to expect the U.S. economy to be resilient and grow this year.