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This Week In Credit Card News: A Free $30 Costco Gift Card; Troubling Signs For The Economy

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Troubling Signs Emerge as Credit Card Debt Hits Record High

As credit card debt hit an all-time high, just shy of $1 trillion, in the final three months of 2022, delinquencies among borrowers accelerated. Balances grew $61 billion in the fourth quarter from the previous one to $986 billion, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found. That marked the largest quarterly increase and the highest total since the series began in 1999. At the same time, the rate at which credit card holders missed payments and became more than 90 days behind was higher than before the pandemic, especially among younger borrowers, a potentially worrying sign when the student loan pause lifts later this year. [Yahoo Finance]

You Can Get a $30 Gift Card for Joining Costco Right Now

We’ve already done the math and determined a $60 Costco Gold Star membership is worth the cash, but it’s an even better deal when you get money back for joining. For a limited time, when you sign up for Costco’s basic membership, you’ll receive a $30 “Digital Costco Shop Card,” which is a fancier way of saying $30 to spend on whatever you want at Costco. [LifeHacker]

Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase Report Rising Delinquencies

The two largest banks in the U.S. have reported rising delinquency rates on their credit cards. Both Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase said in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission that their delinquency rates rose in January. This news came two days after Discover Financial reported that its credit card delinquency rate has been rising each month since May 2022, reaching 2.67% in January, and its net charge-off rate was the highest it had seen since February 2021 as it hit 2.81% in January. Other organizations recently reported that they’re seeing rising delinquencies among subprime and near-prime borrowers. [PYMNTS]

Visa and Mastercard Have Embraced Blockchain Technology. It’s a Smart Long-Term Strategy

Considering the disruptive nature of blockchain technology, one could be forgiven for thinking that traditional payment players would be very worried, and perhaps even combative towards, the new payment method. But rather, Visa and Mastercard, the two largest payment rails in the world, have embraced blockchain technology, implementing it into several of their products and services. They’ve also vowed to keep innovating around the technology as well. Mastercard, for instance, has at least 89 blockchain patents. In many ways, blockchain technology heightens the competition for these large, traditional payment players. But that’s a key reason why embracing the technology is a smart long-term strategy for both Visa and Mastercard. [The Motley Fool]

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Wells Fargo, Eyeing Growth in Credit Cards, Lands Hotel Chain as Partner

Wells Fargo has nabbed a co-branded hotel card partnership that was previously held by Barclays, notching a win in the megabank’s efforts to revitalize its credit card business. The bank’s new multi-year partnership is with Choice Hotels International, which operates brands such as Radisson Hotels, Comfort, Quality, Clarion, Econo Lodge and Cambria. Choice Hotels has nearly 7,500 properties across the globe. The announcement comes as Wells retools its credit card portfolio. In recent years, the bank has launched a new suite of Wells Fargo-branded cards aimed at growing its customer base after years of underperformance. [American Banker]

Apple to Scrutinize Customer History for New ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ Service

With Apple pushing into the lending business with a “buy now, pay later” service, the company is laying out rules for how it will approve transactions. One key factor: whether you’ve been a good customer in the past. The Apple Pay Later service, announced last year but still in the testing phase, will evaluate borrowers based on their spending history and even which of the company’s devices they own. The program, which lets shoppers make purchases and then pay over installments, also will look at whether customers have applied for an Apple Card credit card and the other cards they have linked to their Apple Pay accounts. [Bloomberg]

Number of Credit Cards Issued Via Digital Card Platforms Projected to Surge

A new study from Juniper Research is forecasting the number of credit cards issued via digital card issuance platforms will exceed 321 million globally by 2027, up from 120 million in 2023. Digital card issuance platforms allow card issuers to create cards using an API-driven approach; enabling cards to be delivered instantly to digital wallets, with the option for a physical card; boosting flexibility. [CU Today]

Retailers Oppose Banks Seeking More Time on Debit Routing Rule

A group of banks asked the Federal Reserve Board to give them another year and a half to implement a debit routing rule, but a merchant and retail trade group argues they’ve had plenty of time to comply. The bank groups, including the American Bankers Association, the Consumer Bankers Association and the Credit Union National Association, waved a host of reasons in their letter as to why they shouldn’t have to meet a July 1 deadline to satisfy the rule. The rule would force card issuers, most of which are banks, to offer merchants more than one debit routing option. It’s a regulation that went into effect as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, but there’s been more than a decade of haggling over whether the requirement should apply to online transactions as well. [Payments Dive]

Goldman Sachs Scraps Idea for Direct-to-Consumer Credit Card after Strategy Shift

Goldman Sachs has dropped plans to develop a Goldman-branded credit card for retail customers, another casualty of the firm’s strategic pivot. Not long ago, CEO David Solomon told analysts that the bank was developing its own card, which would’ve made use of the platform Goldman created for its Apple Card partnership. A Goldman card would’ve been part of a suite of products, including a digital checking account, to help enhance the profit margins and loyalty of its retail efforts, according to people with knowledge of the matter. That vision unraveled after Solomon bowed to pressure to stem losses from its consumer businesses as storm clouds gathered on the U.S. economy last year. [CNBC]

Venezuelans Say Credit Cards That Were Once Lifeline Now ‘Useless’

Credit cards are becoming increasingly useless in Venezuela because of high inflation and government restrictions, hurting people already struggling to meet daily needs on low salaries, banking industry sources, analysts and consumers said. As incomes have fallen and living costs have grown, credit cards have become vital for many people to make everyday purchases in supermarkets and pharmacies, even as credit limits stagnate and some banks eliminate the cards altogether. [Reuters]

Thousands of UK Parents Swap Piggy Banks for Plastic

Debit card providers in the UK have revealed the trend in under-16s using pre-paid debit cards has filtered down to primary aged children as young as six. There has been a boom in under-16s using prepaid debit cards to spend their pocket money. Online bank Revolut has seen the number of under-18s using one of its cards rise from 250,000 to 1.15 million in just two years, including more than 10,000 six-year-olds. [Daily Mail]

Most Consumers Can’t Live Without Their Mobile Banking App, Study Shows

About 87% of consumers are using their digital banking app at least once a month, which is 2% more than last year. Demand for a single bank app that helps consumers handle all their banking needs isn’t going anywhere; unified banking experiences are here to stay. The convenience of paying digitally is turning doubters into believers. 82% of all consumers pay digitally once a month or more, and 47% are doing so at least once a week, representing a 5% YoY growth from 2021. The majority of consumers (56%) report paying regular attention to their credit, as well as undertaking efforts to maintain a good score. [Tear Sheet]

Finance

The Calculus Behind The ESG Battle Between The White House And Capitol Hill

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When President Biden used his first veto (less than 60 days after his party no longer controlled both houses of Congress), the media reported on the event with much fanfare. That it had to do with a very narrow subject didn’t matter. But was all the chest pumping justified? Could it be that the issue was already moot even before Congress passed the joint resolution that inspired the veto?

On Wednesday, March 1, 2023, the Senate voted 50-46 to overturn the Department of Labor’s new Fiduciary Rule. This new Rule was to replace a similar Rule promulgated by the DOL under the Trump administration. At issue was the application of ESG criteria by ERISA fiduciaries to retirement plan investments.

What does ESG stand for?

“ESG stands for environmental, social, and governance,” says Andrew Poreda, VP and ESG senior research analyst at Sage Advisory Services in Austin, Texas. “ESG factors are non-financial (yet important) factors that are critical to the success of a corporation or entity.”

The concept isn’t entirely new. A similar philosophy called “Socially Responsible Investing” (“SRI”) emerged as a favorite among activists in the 1980s. It primarily targeted institutional investments in South Africa.

Going further back, religious organizations have practiced this form of exclusionary investing for quite some time. For example, it’s not unusual to see portfolios for church groups prohibit investments in “sin” stocks (alcohol, tobacco, and gambling) or stocks in the defense industry.

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Why is ESG important?

If ESG is just an SRI rose by another name, why has it suddenly become the center of such controversy? In short, it’s because it’s a little hard to define, and when it’s defined, it seems to run contrary to fiduciary practices.

Lawrence (Larry) Starr, of Cornerstone Retirement, Inc./Qualified Plan Consultants in West Springfield, Massachusetts, says, “There is no way to mandate something that is so poorly defined and differs widely in application from company to company and from investor to investor.”

As one of those investors, however, it’s critical you understand how other investors view ESG for the same reason it’s important for value investors to understand how growth investors think and vice versa.

“ESG is data that can provide a more complete picture of how a company operates beyond financial analysis alone,” says Bud Sturmak, the head of impact investing and a partner at Perigon Wealth Management in New York City. “ESG analysis helps to better understand a company’s overall stability, its opportunity to create shareholder value, and its exposure to critical business risks. ESG data can help inform sound investment decisions and allow you to tailor your portfolio to reflect your personal values.”

What is the main focus of ESG?

Starr says the primary reason ESG exists is “to provide ‘socially conscious’ investors with guidance as to a company’s attention to these (not well-defined) subjects.”

Again, if you look at things from the point of view of proponents, ESG, no matter how ill-defined up close, has a sincere intention when looking at it from the 30,000-foot level.

“The main purpose of ESG investing is to reward good corporate citizenship and encourage companies to act responsibly by allocating capital to companies that share the investor’s values,” says Rob Reilly, a member of the finance faculty at the Providence College School of Business and an investment consultant at North Atlantic Investment Partners in Boston. “Environmental criteria consider how a company deals with environmental risks and natural resource management, including corporate policies addressing climate change. Social criteria evaluate how a company manages relationships with customers, suppliers, employees, and the communities where they operate. Governance deals with a company’s leadership, board of director diversity, internal controls, executive pay, audits, and shareholder rights.”

This broad objective can have multiple tactics. How do these varying approaches impact the definition of ESG?

“This depends on one’s perspective,” says Matthew Eickman, national retirement practice leader at Qualified Plan Advisors in Omaha. “At a binary level, it’s either to invest in companies in an effort to support or advance social and environmental agendas, or it’s to invest in companies whose commitment to environmental, social, and/or governance issues situates the companies to perform well in the future.”

This confusion can lead some to question the real aim of ESG.

“It is a Machiavellian and subversive attempt by ESG woke proponents to seize and control how boards of directors in America run their company on ESG goals rather than profit and loss goals,” says Terry Morgan, President of OK401k in Oklahoma City.

What did the President and Congress hope to achieve by their actions?

Given the passion ESG generates on both sides, is it any surprise that it has become a political hot potato? And when something becomes a political hot potato, you need to guard against hyperbole.

“First, it should be noted that there is a disconnect between what the bill does and what some politicians are claiming it does,” says Poreda. “The intent of Congress’s joint resolution appears to be aimed at preventing retirement plans from investing in strategies that are aimed at pushing political and ideological agenda (e.g., ESG strategies are seen as being aligned with climate activism and ‘woke’ agendas).”

Indeed, it could be that both proponents and opponents of ESG may not have read the fine print of either the Trump or Biden Rules.

In a post published in the Harvard Law School Forum, Max M. Schanzenbach (Northwestern Pritzker School of Law), and Robert H. Sitkoff (Harvard Law School) wrote, “Much of the confusion that the 2022 Biden Rule endorses ESG investing, and that the 2020 Trump Rule opposed it, traces to the original proposals for those rules. The Biden Proposal favored ESG factors by deeming them ‘often’ required by fiduciary duty. The Trump Proposal disfavored ESG factors by subjecting them to enhanced fiduciary scrutiny. However, following the notice-and-comment period, the Department significantly revised those proposals before finalization. Neither final rule singled out ESG investing for favored or disfavored treatment. The final Trump Rule did not use the term ‘ESG.’ The regulatory text of the final Biden Rule refers once to ESG investing, but only to state that ESG factors ‘may’ be ‘relevant to a risk and return analysis,’ depending ‘on the individual facts and circumstances.’ This statement is true for all investment factors, ESG or otherwise.”

Certainly, political leaders possess the legal literacy to discern this similarity. Why, then, did we have all the fireworks surrounding the Joint Resolution?

“Unfortunately, this issue has become politicized and certain politicians believed these factors were being taken into account to achieve political rather than financial goals,” says Robert Lowe, a partner (through his professional corporation) of Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP in Los Angeles.

Clearly, there is no consensus on the meaning of ESG. Perhaps, given there are multiple ideas concerning the definition of “ESG,” it’s only natural that the reasons behind the various maneuverings might also be divergent.

“Different supporters of the vetoed proposal had different intents,” says Albert Feuer of the Law Offices of Albert Feuer in Forest Hills, New York. “Many supporters believe risk return analysis should be subordinated to ESG factors that are not called ESG factors, such as investing in United States fossil fuel ventures to preserve jobs in those ventures even if they have poor risk-return profiles. These same supporters criticize ESG advocates of the divestment fossil fuel investments, which the regulation prohibits absent a showing that these investments will be replaced by those with a better risk-return profile. Other supporters have little confidence in financial analysts and free markets. They believe ESG factors are inherently bad and thus fiduciaries should be prohibited from considering them absent compelling evidence that in a particular situation, such factors would improve the risk-return profile of an investment.”

Marcia S. Wagner, Esq., president/founder of The Wagner Law Group in Boston, Massachusetts, in a Forbes.com interview, said that President Biden faced pressure from his own party. Starr agrees. He says Biden had no choice but “to bow to his far-left constituency, especially since he just approved major drilling for oil in Alaska. This gives him a countervailing argument to show he hasn’t abandoned his ‘progressive’ policies completely.”

In the end, you could have easily predicted the actions by all actors in the dance between the joint resolution and the veto.

“This was a foregone conclusion,” says Eickman. “Biden knew he couldn’t appear weak on this, even if he may not view the DOL regulation as having nearly the impact as Congress had suggested with its votes.”

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Deutsche Bank Should Disclose Its Current Liquidity Levels To Investors

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Investors’ fear about the financial health of banks globally was palpable today. As they swarm bank after bank, Deutsche Bank was next on their list. They pummeled Deutsche Bank’s stocks and bonds. And the price for protection against a Deutsche Bank’s bond default rose significantly as evidenced in the credit derivatives market.

Nothing new, in particular, came out about Deutsche Bank today. It is not as if market participants only discovered today that Deutsche Bank has a long history of weak risk controls and a list of scandals rivaling Credit Suisse. Every time that there have been scandals about Deutsche Bank’s poor risk management, the stock falls, but eventually investors seem to just shrug their shoulders and move on. Yet, when you look at the stock over a much longer period of time, investors have been showing their discontent with the beleaguered bank for over a decade. Deutsche Bank has never recovered from its high on April 1, 2007. In fact, the stock has fallen almost 95% since then.

Liquidity Risk Is Key

What investors should be monitoring for all banks is how liquid they are, that, is whether they can pay all their obligations when they come due. It is difficult, if not impossible to know, how liquid Deutsche Bank is right now. Banks are only required to disclose financial and risk information on a quarterly basis. By the time, market participants get this information, it is already old.

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According to Deutsche Bank’s Basel III Pillar III Risk Disclosures, as of the end of December 2022, Deutsche Bank’s Liquidity Coverage Ratio was 135%, higher than the minimum requirement of 100%. The figure tells us that at that end of 2022, Deutsche Bank had enough high-quality liquid assets such as cash, money market instruments, and unencumbered investment grade bonds, to cover net cash outflows in periods of stress. That figure has declined by 7% from 2018 when it was at 145%.

In the U.S., as a stand-alone entity, Deutsche Bank’s Liquidity Coverage Ratio at the end of December 2022 was 141%. Banks are not required to disclose this ratio more frequently, so no one outside of Deutsche Bank knows what the LCR is today.

Unlike Silicon Valley Bank, Deutsche Bank has a diversity of funding sources such as retail and corporate deposits from different geographies, short-term and medium-term credit lines, as well as access to wholesale funding. Stable sources of funding are always important, especially right now.

In comparison to its globally systemically important bank (G-SIBs) peers in Europe at the end of 2022, however, Deutsche Bank did not have as high a percent of liquid assets as a percent of total assets. It appears to be less liquid than Barclays, UBS, Société Générale, Credit Suisse, or HSBC HBA . Deutsche Bank’s LCR and Net Stable Funding Ratio, a measure of funding stability for a twelve-month period, are also both lower than most European banks in that peer group.

As of today, the global rating agencies had Deutsche Bank in the A – BBB+ range which is considered investment grade, and the outlook is stable or positive. The very nature of processes that have to be abided by ratings analysts means that market participants always move faster to exhibit what they think of any company.

What Deutsche Bank should be doing right now is disclosing granular information about its current liquidity levels, sources of funding, and capital ratios. That certainly would give market participants a good idea of how the bank stands. No one had banking chaos on their bingo card at the end of 2022. So why should we be relying on financial information from then? In this environment, opacity only unnerves market participants even more.

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Deutsche Bank’s Death By A Thousand Cuts Is Not Over

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Deutsche Bank’s Impending Auf Wiedersehen Will Hurt Americans

Does Greed Drive Deutsche Bank And Other Banks Not To File Suspicious Activity Reports?

Deutsche Bank Needs Serious Laundering

Deutsche and Other Scandal-Plagued Banks Should Learn From Novartis, Tenneco, And Volkswagen

Possible Trump Deutsche Bank Fraud Raises Serious Questions

Measure U.S. Banks Credit Exposure to Deutsche Bank Now

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Finance

It’s Time For Some Serious Railroad Regulation

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There are times that news coverage seems like an ongoing recreation of the Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore movie 50 First Dates. Bad things happen and are then forgotten. Something happens again and rarely is it treated like an ongoing story. The public, other than those directly involved, also forgets and doesn’t press for closer coverage.

A current example is the railroad industry. Take the disastrous accident in East Palestine, Ohio that happened on just before 9p.m. on February 3, 2023. About 50 out of 149 cars derailed, according to ABC News. Out of the cars that went off the rails, 11 carried hazardous waste, including vinyl chloride, ethyl acrylate, and isobutylene. The last two are highly toxic and potentially carcinogenic.

Then came the mandatory evacuation, first within a one-mile radius, then two. Officials conducted a controlled burn of the substances, which turned into a heavy cloud. Eventually, the officials said that air and water samples were deemed safe. Except, the EPA found the chemicals in streams near the derailment site.

Later, large amounts of aquatic life would be found dead, even though officials had kept saying that everything was fine. Thousands of cubic yards of contaminated soil and millions of gallons of liquid waste have been collected. The State of Ohio has filed a lawsuit against Norfolk Southern NSC .

Back on February 21, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg sent a letter to the rail line. One part of the multi-page paper: “Major derailments in the past have been followed by calls for reform – and by vigorous resistance by your industry to increased safety measures. This must change.”

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Yes, it must. But while an extreme issue, this isn’t the only rail accident that takes place in a year. In fact, there are literally thousands of varying degrees. Here’s a chart from the Department of Transportation:

In the latest year for which there is available data, 2021, 8,096 accidents occurred. Again, that could mean anything. But it does include 747 total fatalities and 4,647 injuries. Of those, 11 deaths and 2,577 injuries were of employees. Outside of grade crossings, where most of the troubles occur, there were 1,626 train accidents.

Total incidents in 2020 were 7,785. In 2019, 9,747; 9,682 in 2018; and 9,497 in 2017.

Shifting from such dangers and outcomes for a moment, think back to the impending rail strike in the fall of 2022. Many of the union workers were, and probably still are, deeply angry. Money was an issue, but the big holdup had been around attendance, sick time and scheduling. People get badly hurt working on rail lines and they need time to recover and get medical help. But rail companies, including BNSF Railway Company, owned by Berkshire Hathaway BRK.B with carefully avuncular Warren Buffett, don’t want to spend money on more staff.

No good crying poor. For perspective, the median value for all industries is 7.9%. The heights the railroad industry reaches are the fifth highest of any industry, only exceeded by money center banks (the really big ones), non-bank financial services, regional banks, and entertainment software. Look at “pre-tax, pre-stock compensation operating margin” numbers—before paying taxes or large stock grants. From that view, tobacco is at the top at 44.7%. And second highest? Railroads with their 42.4%.

If you look at the data only from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, employee injuries and fatalities have been falling since at least 2000.

In large part because the companies keep cutting back staff. In October 2000, there were 220,200 railroad transportation workers. By October 2022, the number was 142,300. Over the same period, the number of hauled containers and trailers went from 782,694 to 1,129,125, up 40%.

They could easily afford more workers. Better technology. Additional safety measures. And still make carloads of cash. But they don’t and clearly won’t.

The executive branch has to step in. So does Congress. When last they did, though, it was to side with the owners because of concern that a strike would shake supply chain logistics. Railroads transportation account for about 28% of freight transportation in the U.S., according to the Federal Railroad Administration.

However, there’s another factor as well. As an OpenSecrets.org analysis shows, the rail industry spend $653.5 million on government lobbying over the last 10 years, “with the biggest splurges occurring between 2008 and 2012 where the industry lobbied an act aiming to enforce antitrust laws on the freight railroad industry.” The lobbying expenses in 2022 were only $24.6 million, the lowest annual amount, adjusted for inflation, in more than two decades. (Check the link to see the article for many more details.)

Profits and spending on political leverage—money is the key and people, whether employees or citizens who are in the wrong place at the wrong time, are eventually sacrificial.

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