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Big U.S. banks are prepared for credit-card balances to start ticking up again this year as pandemic restrictions ease and stimulus checks stop arriving, setting up the industry for a bump in one of its most profitable businesses, Reuters reported. Lenders, including Capital One, Citigroup and JPMorgan, have been sending out more promotions to enroll new customers and encourage borrowers to spend, said Andrew Davidson of marketing-tracker Mintel Comperemedia. Some 260 million offers were sent in March, the firm estimates. Banks have increased digital marketing, too, on Facebook, Instagram, video sites and podcasts, he said. "The big banks are ramping up in anticipation of the recovery post-pandemic," Davidson said. "They are really trying to make up lost ground from last year." At the same time, lenders have been easing credit standards, according to a recent Federal Reserve survey and public comments by bank executives, including from Bank of America Corp.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) requested yesterday that a federal district court enter a final judgment and order that, if entered by the court, would require DMB Financial, LLC to pay consumers at least $5.4 million for charging unlawful fees and failing to provide required disclosures to its customers, and a civil penalty, according to a press release. The CFPB alleges that DMB’s actions violated the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) and the Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA). “DMB Financial preyed on consumers who were struggling financially, charging millions of dollars in illegal upfront fees and hiding the true cost of its services,” said CFPB Acting Director Dave Uejio. “Charging upfront fees for debt settlement is a violation of federal law, and the CFPB will continue to act decisively when we see companies taking advantage of consumers in this way.” DMB Financial is a Massachusetts-based debt-settlement company that operates in at least 24 states. DMB offers and provides services to settle or renegotiate unsecured debt on behalf of consumers. In December 2020 the CFPB filed a lawsuit against DMB Financial in federal district court in Massachusetts alleging that the company had charged unlawful upfront frees before it performed its promised services, and before consumers began making payments under any debt settlement.

Nearly one-quarter of Americans ended 2020 worse off financially than they were 12 months ago, according to results from a Federal Reserve survey released yesterday, The Hill reported. A survey conducted by the Fed in November found that 24 percent of Americans said their financial standing took a hit amid the pandemic, 10 percentage points higher than at the end of 2019. The percentage of Americans reporting a decline in their finances was the highest recorded by the Fed’s annual Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (SHED) since 2014. "This new survey gives us valuable details about the financial challenges families have faced during the pandemic," Fed Governor Michelle Bowman said in a statement. "Even as the economy has improved, we can certainly see that some are still struggling, especially those who lost their jobs and those with less education, many of whom fell further behind." The U.S. economy is expected to bounce back strongly from the pandemic-driven recession, which caused the quickest and steepest economic decline since the Great Depression. Even so, millions of Americans who lost their jobs or faced other financial hardships during the pandemic are facing much steeper roads to recovery. While nearly one-in-four Americans reported being worse off financially, that ratio is far higher for Black and Hispanic Americans.