U.S. Market Close 10/27/2025

DOW 30  +0.71% +337.47 47,544.59

S&P 500  +1.23% +83.47 6,875.16

NASDAQ 100  +1.83% +463.38 25,821.55

Here’s Why Walmart Doesn’t Allow You to Tap Your Credit or Debit Card for Payment

If you’ve ever tried to tap your credit or debit card at Walmart and noticed it doesn’t work, you’re not imagining things. While nearly every other major retailer accepts “tap-to-pay,” Walmart continues to block it at most stores nationwide. The company allows mobile payments through its Walmart Pay app—but not direct NFC (near-field communication) taps from cards or digital wallets like Apple Pay or Google Pay. So why the holdout? It all comes down to data, control, and profit margins. Here’s why Walmart refuses to let you tap your card at checkout.

1. Walmart Wants to Keep You in Its Own Ecosystem

The main reason Walmart blocks tap-to-pay is because it wants you to use Walmart Pay, its proprietary mobile payment platform. Walmart designed the app to build customer loyalty and collect valuable shopping data. When you use Walmart Pay, the retailer gets insights into your purchase history, frequency, and spending habits. If you use Apple Pay or tap a Visa card, that data goes to someone else. In short, control over your checkout means control over your consumer behavior.

2. NFC Transactions Cost Walmart More

Tap-to-pay transactions use NFC technology, which routes payments through card networks like Visa or Mastercard. Walmart has long resisted these because of the high processing fees that banks and card companies charge. Swipe and tap fees can reach up to 3% per transaction—billions annually for a retailer of Walmart’s size. By steering customers to Walmart Pay, which uses QR codes linked directly to your card or bank, the company avoids much of that cost.

Read more at SAVINGADVICE.COM

2026 Tax Brackets Are Out: 3 Key Changes You Need to Know

Key Points

• The Internal Revenue Service adjusts tax brackets higher to ensure that inflation doesn't accidentally push workers into higher brackets.
• President Donald Trump's large spending bill passed by Congress earlier this year also made changes to the tax code.
• Specifically, the standard deduction and the state and local tax deduction will change.
• The $23,760 Social Security bonus most retirees completely overlook ›

As the famous saying goes, there are only two certainties in life: death and taxes. And every taxpayer should be aware of major changes to the tax code for the 2026 tax year. These include the tax brackets that dictate how much people will pay based on how much income they make each year.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently released changes to the 2026 tax brackets, which will largely affect people in 2027 when they file their 2026 return. Here are three key changes to be aware of.

Read more at NASDAQ

ValidiFI helps financial institutions balance customer expectations

with secure, efficient lending decisions.

HSBC Selects ValidiFI to Power Next-Generation Bank Account Validation & Fraud Monitoring

Strategic partnership underscores HSBC’s commitment to modernizing payment security and customer protection from fraud, scams, and mule bank accounts

ALPHARETTA, Ga., OCTOBER 27, 2025 — ValidiFI, Inc., a leader in predictive bank account and payment intelligence today announced that HSBC, one of the world’s largest banking and financial services organizations, has chosen ValidiFI’s advanced account validation and risk detection solutions to enhance the integrity of bank accounts used to pay credit card balances. This collaboration reflects HSBC’s forward-looking approach to payment security, leveraging ValidiFI’s advanced data intelligence to validate account ownership, detect fraudulent payment attempts, and identify suspicious behavioral patterns across all bank accounts. The implementation includes real-time validation of newly enrolled accounts, and ongoing monitoring to detect emerging fraud signals.

“HSBC is setting a new standard in payment security by proactively adopting technologies that go beyond traditional fraud prevention,” said John Gordon, CEO of ValidiFI. “Its decision to implement our intelligence platform demonstrates a clear commitment to safeguarding customer transactions and staying ahead of increasingly complex payment schemes.”

The collaboration addresses a growing need for smarter tools to detect and deter threats such as synthetic identities, mule accounts, and payment scams. ValidiFI’s comprehensive data network analyzes a wide range of behavioral and transactional data to flag anomalies before they impact customers.

Key capabilities delivered through this initiative include:

• Account ownership verification, ensuring payments originate from legitimate sources
• Pre-transaction risk detection to identify high-risk activity before funds move
• Behavioral analytics to uncover patterns associated with scams and misuse
• Ongoing monitoring to adapt to evolving fraud tactics and maintain a secure environment

“Providing customers with efficient and secure ways of making credit card payments is essential,” said HSBC U.S. Head of Retail Product and Lending John Phelan. “Our innovation and transformation efforts in personal banking require advanced fraud services, such as those offered by ValidiFI, that protect our clients.”

Read more at ValidiFI

Are there systemic risks in the private credit market? 

Investing.com - Earlier this month, the International Monetary Fund looked to raise alarm bells about the U.S.-centric private credit market.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told a news conference in Washington that a rush of lending by non-bank financial institutions could render the sector susceptible to increasing risks.

By extension, should these concerns grow, the global economy may be put in a "difficult place," she argued.

Georgieva’s warning came as investors were fretting over the credit health of U.S. regional lenders following the high-profile bankruptcies of auto parts manufacturer First Brands and subprime car lender Tricolor in September. Both of these firms leaned heavily on private credit markets for financing, spotlighting Wall Street’s potential exposure to what has been described as an "opaque" industry.

Read more at INVESTING.COM

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Our #IRS Interactive Tax Assistant has answers.

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Jose L. Santiago

Public Affairs Specialist

Tax Outreach, Partnership and Education

Email: jose.l.santiago@irs.gov

These states won't tax your Social Security, 401(k), IRA or pension Income

Some retirees will find themselves living in much more tax-friendly states than others.

People (ideally) spend decades preparing for retirement, whether it's paying into the Social Security system, stashing money and investing in various retirement accounts or earning a pension. It may sometimes seem like a tedious task, but it's well worth the effort when the fruits of your labor pay off when you enter your golden years with a nice nest egg.

There's no doubt that being financially prepared for retirement is one of the surest ways to avoid stress in those years. However, just like in your working years, the chances are still high of you having to deal with the IRS. Federal tax rules will continue to apply to everyone, but luckily, some retirees in certain states may be exempt from many of these taxes.

States that don't tax retirement income in some form

The following states do not tax some forms of retirement income, including Social Security, 401(k)/IRA withdrawals, and pensions. Some states exempt all, while others exempt a portion:

Read more at USAToday

Florida’s Title Lending Laws Promote a Financial Literate Lifestyle

Florida’s lending market changed significantly after new state rules took effect. New rules are now in place for lenders giving out vehicle-secured (title) loans, which means consumers in Florida get better protections to fund their lifestyle. This article goes over the changes that impact residents in the state.

In 2024, Florida’s consumer finance industry saw some major updates. The new mandates reshape the operational requirements for lenders offering vehicle secured loans, touching on everything from cost transparency to disaster support. Now there’s a critical layer of accountability and consumer protection previously absent from the market. For people in Florida using credit products, getting a handle on the rules is super important for living a financially responsible lifestyle.

Title Loan Requirements and Transparency

A new era of market transparency began on March 15, 2025. Licensees are now mandated to submit a comprehensive, anonymized report of aggregated data to the Office of Financial Regulation (OFR) annually. Reporting includes key metrics like loan originations, outstanding balances, delinquencies, and charge-offs. The requirement delivers the state its first consolidated public data set on the true performance of small-dollar lending, giving regulators and consumers unprecedented clarity for assessing market health.

Read more at ParleMag

When generic AI isn’t enough: why insurance needs its own brain

Insurance companies may be eager to adopt generative AI capabilities, but generic models often fail to grasp the industry’s complexities. That is the problem Roots set out to solve with InsurGPT, a domain-trained AI designed specifically for insurers.

Roots co-founder and chief executive Chaz Perera spent over 14 years within the insurance sector, as an underwriting and claims operations leader, eventually rising to the chief transformation officer level at AIG, a top-10 global commercial lines carrier.

During this time, Perera watched as insurers struggled to automate the immense amounts of unstructured data in nearly every insurance process. Traditional approaches typically involved mailroom document scanning – emails (often with several attachments), faxes, written notes, and even structured forms that didn’t fit existing automation templates well – and then passing them to a human expert to read, understand, and make decisions… dozens, even hundreds of times every day.

Read more at Fintech Global

What are the Regulatory Challenges of Using Stablecoins for Payroll?

What hurdles do companies face with stablecoin payroll?

The growing trend of using stablecoins for payroll in Asia's fintech startups is not without its challenges. Regulatory barriers are significant and multifaceted, requiring careful navigation by companies looking to adopt this form of payment.

What are the licensing requirements for stablecoin issuers in Asia?

In places like Hong Kong, getting a stablecoin up and running means jumping through the necessary hoops for licenses and capital standards. They aren't exactly rolling out the red carpet for algorithmic stablecoins either. Over in Singapore, there's a half-hearted opt-in regime for single-currency stablecoins, but it hasn't made its way into law yet. And Japan? They've drawn a hard line where only banks and money transfer firms can issue stablecoins.

What compliance issues arise when paying salaries in stablecoins?

Read more at OneSafe

INFiN's 2025 MoneyTrends Conference

October 26-October 29

Contact: LeeAnn Thompson, Director of Member Services

lthompson@infinalliance.org

1 in 5 Americans now regularly get news on TikTok

A fifth of U.S. adults now regularly get news on TikTok, up from just 3% in 2020. In fact, during that span, no social media platform we’ve studied has experienced faster growth in news consumption, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis.

TikTok is primarily known for short-form video sharing and is especially popular among teens – 63% of whom report ever using the platform.

Adults ages 30 to 49 have also increasingly been getting news on TikTok: A quarter now say they do so regularly, up from just 2% five years ago. Much smaller shares of adults ages 50 to 64 and 65 and older say they regularly get news there (10% and 3%, respectively, as of this year).

When looking at adult TikTok users specifically, news consumption has also increased sharply in recent years. More than half of TikTok users (55%) now say they regularly get news on the platform, up from 22% in 2020. TikTok is now on par with several other social media sites – including X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and Truth Social – in the share of its adult users who regularly get news there.

Read more at PEW Research Center

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MasterCard Pursues No-Touch Retail

MasterCard International Inc. Vice President Oliver Steeley is working to make contactless payment available to millions of Americans. Contactless payment is where a customer authorizes a charge to a credit card without the credit card being touched, often by using a key fob, a smart credit card or a chip embedded in something else (such as a cell phone or wristwatch).

The authorization is sent to a reader wirelessly, from which it is then communicated to a POS (Point of Sale) unit, which might be a significant distance away.

The major card companies—including MasterCard, Visa International Service Assoc., American Express Co. and Discover Card—are embracing contactless payment for its convenience.

Credit card firms are also working to make it easier for retailers to use contactless payment in all kinds of purchases, including small purchases where cash would typically be preferred.

Read more at eweek.com

45% of investors are interested in alternatives, survey finds — advisors say there’s an easy way in

Key Points

• More Americans want to include alternative investments in their portfolios, which can include assets like cryptocurrencies, private-market assets and gold.
• Two-thirds of Americans surveyed said investing success requires supplementing traditional assets, according to a new survey from Charles Schwab.
• “Although there is constant noise in the investment landscape, chasing fads or the latest headlines can negatively impact an investor’s portfolio in the short and long term,” said Andy Reed, head of behavioral economics research at Vanguard.

Amid growing consumer interest in alternative investments, financial advisors say it’s important to find the right way to invest.

Alternative investments are a broad category that covers many assets outside traditional holdings of cash, stock and bonds. Alts include private-market assets, real estate, commodities such as gold and oil, and cryptocurrencies, among others.

Investing in these products can entail added risks and complexities, advisors said. One smart way to get exposure to them is a more traditional vehicle: exchange-traded funds.

Read more at CNBC

Contact Chuck.Sockol@mcrc.biz to discuss your recovery needs

Learn why 'synthetic ID theft' is a dangerous new scam tactic

Identity theft is an ever-evolving crime. As credit bureaus and individuals catch on to the schemes of identity thieves, the con artists simply modify their tactics.

Scammers are now combining information from multiple individuals to invent a false identity, a technique called “synthetic” identity theft. It’s so hard to detect, you might be a victim and not even know it.

The Deloitte Center for Financial Services projects that synthetic identity theft fraud will generate at least $23 billion in losses by 2030.

How the scam works

Scammers pull together a stolen Social Security or social insurance number (often belonging to a minor or someone with no credit history), the address of an abandoned property and a fake name and birth date. Using that information, the scammer applies for a credit card. Initially, they will be declined since they don’t have a credit profile, but that creates a record of a “person” that doesn’t actually exist.

Read more at TheAllianceReview

Why most of us are reluctant to switch banks, even though it could cut our environmental impact

Beyond cutting back on meat or making the jump to an electric vehicle, another way consumers can reduce their environmental impact is to switch to a green bank. It’s a lifestyle change that could deliver powerful effects – removing money from the fossil fuels pipeline – for little effort or inconvenience.

Yet it has been claimed that people in the UK are more likely to get divorced than switch banks – despite there being services that make changing your current account easy.

The UK’s seven-day Current Account Switch Service (Cass), in operation since 2013, has completed more than 11.6 million switches, including over a million in the year to March 2025. The service switches your incoming and outgoing payments including salary payments, direct debits and standing orders.

Cass reports that 99.7% of these account switches were completed within seven working days – and nearly 90% of people who used the service were satisfied with it. Yet relative to the whole UK population, the number of people actually switching remains modest. The process works, but behaviour lags.

Read more at TheConversation

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Citi's Plan for an AI-savvy Workforce is a Challenge All Banks Must Match

We’re Speeding Past the Tipping Point of Gen AI in Banking

Executive Summary

• Citi’s plan to train hundreds of thousands of employees on how to use GenAI tools is an acknowledgement that AI adoption needs to be encouraged and supported, not rationed
• Citi is also recognizing an important reality: Its best employees are probably already using GenAI tools on their own, and that the bank’s smartest strategy is to shape and refine that usage to its advantage.
• Citi’s move also signals that a workforce that’s enabled and supported in day-to-day use of GenAI will soon be a competitive necessity for all banks and financial institutions, whatever their size.

Citi just made a massive move that every bank and credit union leader should be watching closely. Citi is requiring 175,000 employees to take a training program titled "Asking Smart Questions – Prompting Like a Pro".

Read more at The Financial Brand

Three Must-Dos for Banks: Faster Payments, Stablecoins and Agentic Commerce

Executive Summary

• U.S. faster payments programs continue to advance, especially the Federal Reserve’s FedNow program and The Clearing House Real-Time Payment Network.
• Meanwhile, the passage of the GENIUS Act this summer has introduced stablecoins into the payments arena. They will intersect with faster payments, but also represent a separate, parallel payments rail.
• Consumer experimenters are tinkering with agentic commerce wedded to payments, but the most exciting progress may come on the business side.

Reed Luhtanen frequently uses an analogy to describe the realities of the payments business.

Say you’re sending something by FedEx, says Luhtanen, executive director and CEO of the U.S. Faster Payments Council. "You don’t tell FedEx, ‘I want you to use a Peterbilt truck or a Mack truck.’ Users don’t care about those things. They care about matters like: How much is it going to cost me? When’s it going to get there? Do you have insurance if something goes wrong? "

Read more at The Financial Brand

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Selling Insurance Through Credit Unions: Busting the Myths Holding Back Growth

Credit unions overlook life insurance despite tight margins and slow loan growth. Integrating coverage into lending and financial planning can close protection gaps for members while generating non-interest income institutions need.

Credit unions face tightening margins and slower loan growth, making non-interest income more critical than ever. Yet many financial institutions, including credit unions, overlook life insurance — which sits squarely at the intersection of their members’ financial security and their own balance-sheet strength.

A few data points bring both the challenge and the opportunity into sharp focus:

• Annualized loan growth in the U.S. credit union system was just 1.9% in the first half of 2025 — well below historical norms and far slower than overall asset growth — but fees have not picked up the slack: Total non-interest income for federally insured credit unions was down 3.8% in the same period.
• At the same time, families’ protection needs haven’t diminished: While the number of U.S. individual life insurance policies sold grew 4% in the first half of 2025, more than 40% of Americans say they lack adequate coverage, and industry research estimates over 100 million adults face a protection gap.
• And yet — though comprehensive data on insurance sales through credit unions is hard to come by — one recent study found only 15% of financial institution customers have purchased any type of insurance product through their bank or credit union.

Read more at The Financial Brand

Western Union Follows Banks Into Stablecoin Integration

Key Takeaways

• Western Union is exploring stablecoin-powered settlement and wallet solutions.
• Rivals, including MoneyGram and Zepz, already offer stablecoin services.
• Around the world, major banks are also exploring the technology.

Western Union is actively piloting stablecoin settlement rails, CEO Devin McGranahan confirmed on Thursday, Oct. 24.

The move is intended to “reduce dependency on legacy correspondent banking systems.” But as Western Union and its remittance market peers embrace the technology, banks themselves are also active in the space.

Western Union’s Stablecoin Push

Cross-border payments present a key emerging use case for stablecoins. And while they may initially have posed a threat to old-school money transfer operators, many are now taking an “if you can’t beat them, join them” approach.

Read more at YAHOO FINANCE

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start-up, product development, and product evolution stages. PS

Penny shortages already hitting some retailers

With the penny no longer being produced, some stores across the U.S. are running short of the coins. Lawmakers need to pass a legal remedy to allow for rounding to the nearest nickel, retailers say.

The penny’s days are numbered, and some retailers are already running short of the one-cent coins.

The Treasury Department officially marked the beginning of the end of penny production in May when it placed its last order of blanks – the flat metal discs to make pennies. That came after President Donald Trump told the department in February to stop making the coins, which cost more than 3 cents to produce. (They cost 3.69 cents to make, according to the U.S. Mint.)

The U.S. Mint reportedly made its last pennies in August, the American Bankers Association said on Oct. 17. Already, some convenience stores, supermarkets and retailers, including Kroger and Home Depot, have had locations dealing with penny shortages.

Read more at USA TODAY

How the End of the Safe Deposit Box Is a Signal for Banking’s Future

Executive Summary

• Many banks, including majors like Chase, are rapidly phasing out safety deposit boxes as customer interest flags and the role of the branch evolves.
• But the need for security and continuity that safety boxes represent has not gone away. Its focus has just shifted to other platforms.
• Some innovative banks and credit unions are replacing physical boxes with digital storage that addresses the same need, while adopting to customers’ current preferences.

The quiet disappearance of the safe deposit box may seem like a small design choice. In reality, it’s a signal to the entire industry. Financial institutions are rethinking their role in helping customers safeguard what matters most, and how their services define customer relationships.

Chase, one of the largest banks in the United States, recently shared that it will begin phasing out all remaining safe deposit boxes nationwide. Other banks and credit unions are eliminating safe deposit boxes not out of neglect, but necessity. They’re rethinking every square foot, adopting smaller branch formats, and aligning with how customers actually live and store their most important items.

Read more at The Financial Brand

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Navigating Compliance Challenges in the Age of Data-Driven Financial Marketing

Executive Summary

• Financial marketers must integrate compliance partners early in campaign development, not as a final checkpoint, building guardrails into data architecture, creative governance, and testing from the start.
• Machine learning tools can unintentionally create disparate impact when variables like credit score or homeownership correlate with protected classes, making oversight and balanced data inputs essential.
• Lead with the "why" behind marketing initiatives rather than letting sophisticated models drive strategy. Use advanced targeting as tools to achieve compliant, strategic outcomes aligned with institutional goals.

As financial marketers look ahead to 2026, the opportunities and the risks of data-driven marketing have never been more apparent. The ability to precisely target customers across digital channels has transformed how institutions connect with their communities. But with that precision comes a new level of scrutiny. Digital service providers, marketers, and even third-party vendors are now squarely in scope. For institutions, the challenge is finding a balance: how to innovate and stay competitive without unintentionally excluding protected classes or stepping outside regulatory guardrails.

Read more at The Financial Brand

Fraudsters Exploit Overlooked Weaknesses as SMB Lending Surges Toward $7 Trillion Boom

Executive Summary

• The global SMB lending market is expanding rapidly, creating new opportunities for financial institutions and fraud networks alike.
• Fraudsters are exploiting gaps in identity validation and fragmented data to mimic legitimate borrowers and infiltrate lending systems.
• Lenders must adopt holistic, data-driven fraud detection strategies to keep pace with evolving schemes and protect their portfolios.

Small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs) have long been the growth engine of the U.S. economy. Whether built over decades or just starting out, their success comes from the people who drive them. Beyond creating jobs, these businesses and their leaders anchor communities and represent a significant, and often overlooked, untapped opportunity for financial institutions.

The global SMB business lending market is booming, exceeding $2.46 trillion in 2023 and projected to reach $7.2 trillion by 2032. Financial institutions, large and small, see SMB loans as an attractive addition to their lending portfolios. At the same time, few institutions are able to extend capital to SMBs quickly, without increasing their risk. Therefore, it’s no surprise that fraudsters and fraud networks have also caught on to this opportunity and are aggressively targeting this sector, with fraud rates growing even faster than lending growth.

Read more at The Financial Brand