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U.S. households accumulated significantly more wealth following the pandemic onset than would have been expected without the pandemic shock. Overall excess household wealth—measured as households’ inflation-adjusted net worth beyond pre-pandemic projections—peaked in late 2021 at $13 trillion, then rapidly fell to zero in late 2022, where it broadly remained through the third quarter of 2023. This rise and fall can be attributed mainly to financial assets, particularly equity holdings. Similarly, real liquid asset holdings currently sit below pre-pandemic projections despite a persistent rise in checking account balances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a television commercial created by DDB Chicago for Capital One Bank. Despite an email from a reader that assailed the ad, the author finds no particular fault with it. To the contrary, he finds int surprising that Capital One can offer customers free checking services and a customer-rewards program.

The article discusses an advertising initiative launched by Charles Schwab Financial Services. The advertising initiative involves street teams in New York City passing out calculators that compare the return on Schwab's highly-yield investor checking account versus the national average. The street team's also handed out fake ATM cards, which held an electronic coding that allowed people to redeem the cards for $2 bills, and in some instances $100 bills.

The article focuses on the efforts of U.S. government agencies to reduce costs while improving services to constituents, through replacing checks with reloadable prepaid debit cards. These cards can reduce administrative processes and costs, including producing and distributing checks and replacing lost or stolen checks.

This article focuses on the application of information technology in checking account security. According to the report Criminals Exploit Consumer Bank Account and IT System Weaknesses, published by Gartner, Avivah Litan says criminals increasingly steal account numbers and personal identification numbers by phishing and then create counterfeit automated teller machine cards to withdraw the cash. Banks could prevent such thefts by validating security codes on the magnetic stripe of the card while authorizing transactions.

The article tells of a journalist's experience of finding canceled checks in his bank statement that do not belong to him. In turn, several information about the true owner of the cancelled checks were provided to the journalist, including the true owner's name, date of birth, driver's license number and checking account number. The compromise of the true owner's personal information is bad news, not only for the person who owned the cancelled checks, but also for the bank whose mistake allowed it to happen. Using the story as an example, the article then discusses ways by which such situations happen and what banks and individuals can do to avoid such errors.

This article discusses issues related to biometric identification. For many years, fingerprint scanning and other forms of biometric identification have been the purview of ultra-high-security installations. Suddenly, fingerprint scanning has gone mainstream, showing up at airports, libraries, and grocery stores and in personal data-security applications. Grocery shoppers from Seattle to South Carolina are signing up for new checkout systems. Working in partnership with IBM, Pay By Touch lets shoppers pay using a finger scan linked to their checking account and the stores loyalty programs. Each finger has its own print, so the phone can be programmed to dial assigned numbers or perform programmed functions via the scan of certain fingers. Multiple swipes of a finger can correlate to a given command. The sensor detects motion as well, providing mouse-like capabilities for gaming and navigation. For example, the cell phone can wirelessly receive electronic content like music or digital promos, track account balances, or store electronic receipts.

The article reports that after coddling aging core systems for decades, many toptier banks are planning or implementing change-outs of old Cobol-based platforms with open, Web-enabled applications. The core systems support the most basic bank functions, such as savings and checking accounts and lending systems. These upgrades are being driven by an improving economy, growing regulatory requirements and recent moves to unbundle packaged applications, allowing for piecemeal and thus cheaper, replacement of older platforms, said Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Connecticut. Updating back-office systems can cut banks' IT operating budgets by 5% to 8% through improved efficiency, said research firm Celent Communications LLC in Boston. About 23% of all banks in the U.S. are planning major initiatives related to core banking systems, according to Gartner. Banks in the U.S. lag behind financial institutions in other parts of the world such as Europe, where banks are pressed to change by new European Union rules, Gartner said. Fifth Third Bancorp, a $6.4 billion bank with 950 branches and more than 20,000 employees, replaced its mortgage origination and leasing systems with packaged software from Fiserv Inc. in Brookfield, Wisconsin, over the past two years. The success of the new software prompted the Cincinnati- based bank to look closely at replacing more core systems.

Reports on the impact of the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act on the U.S. financial industry as of November 2003. Provisions of the legislation; Advantage of the legislation to banks; Views on an industry-wide roll-out of electronic check clearance. INSET: Banks' Joint Ventures Make Imaging a Priority.

Reports that the San Francisco, California-based Bank of the West are sending imaged monthly checking account statements to its check account holders. Storing of imaged checks on binders; Benefits of the service for customers.

Reports on the electronic check program being started by the Financial Services Technology Consortium (FSTC). A pilot project between IBM and BankBoston that will enable the US Department of the Treasury to offer electronic checking to customers; The project being the first electronic check pilot managed by the FSTC.

Reports on the flaws in First Chicago Corp.'s marketing strategy for its checking accounts. Questions on the necessity of service charges for bank teller services; Customer confusion caused by First Chicago's marketing changes; Remarks from company officials.