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Planet Money

The hidden world behind your new "banking" app

Planet Money

NPR

Business, News

4.629.8K Ratings

🗓️ 16 August 2024

⏱️ 25 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

You might have seen ads for online banking services that seem to offer a lot of great stuff — accounts you can open in minutes and without a minimum balance or monthly fees. The ads seem to say: "These aren't your parents' boring old banks." But the truth is: Even though they might resemble banks, they aren't.

These "bank-like" companies are a type of "fintech" or financial technology company. And this is a story about the potential risks of putting your money into these apps.

Banks go through a whole regulatory gauntlet in order to exist. But, in the past several years, there has been a rise in fintechs that skirt regulations. And many of these pose a real threat to even the most savvy of depositors.

When a little known tech company filed for bankruptcy a few months ago, thousands of people couldn't access the millions of dollars they saved. On today's show, we meet some of the people affected and learn what the fintech industry reveals about banking regulation.

Today's show was hosted by Erika Beras and Sally Helm. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and Sofia Shchukina with help from James Sneed. It was edited by Jess Jiang and fact-checked by Kevin Volkl. It was engineered by Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez with help from James Willetts. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

When voters talk during an election season, we listen, we ask questions, we follow up, and we bring you along to hear what we learned.

0:09.0

Get closer to the issues, the people, and your vote at the NPR Elections Hub.

0:13.6

Visit NPR.org slash elections.

0:17.0

This is Planet Money from NPR.

0:29.0

Odds are that you've seen ads for these online banking services that seem to offer all this great stuff,

0:32.0

accounts that don't have monthly fees that seem to pay high interest rates

0:36.0

and offer all these fun things that you're a boring old bank may not offer.

0:41.0

This is the story of what can happen when you sign up for one of those services.

0:45.9

We're going to start with Sharinda and Jordan Gonzalez, this couple in Castroville, Texas.

0:51.0

They met 11 years ago. He thought I was married at first.

0:54.0

Oh, I did, yes.

0:55.0

Because I gave some kind of vibe.

0:56.0

She wasn't, and they got married.

0:59.0

Jordan is super into NASCAR, and Sharyinda, she loves books, specifically mysteries, thrillers.

1:07.0

I recently read the intern, that was one of my favorites, and then another one titled

1:11.2

When I'm Dead, I can go on girl.

1:14.0

No.

1:15.0

Sherindo is a social worker at a middle school and Jordan's a software tester.

1:20.0

For a long time, they were living paycheck to paycheck. They'd occasionally buy a lottery ticket, never won.

1:26.0

But in the last couple years they had started to really get their budget under control, paying off like $5,000 of credit card debt, saving up for emergencies, and then one day, Jordan came across

1:36.3

this ad.

1:37.3

This is what you're doing every time you buy a ticket for the lottery.

...

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