Ten major banks and mortgage companies are settling with federal regulators over accusations they wrongfully foreclosed on homeowners.

Heidi Moore, finance and economics editor at The Guardian, discusses the federal lawsuit against Bank of America.

A bank in South Africa announced this summer that its mobile banking customers will now be able to conduct transactions and monitor their accounts through Facebook. This type of cross-pollination between banks and social media does not yet exist in the United States, but it could be coming.

Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi takes a look at the fragile situation at Bank of America. The bank that was deemed too big to fail and received a $45 billion government bailout has, Taibbi argues, defrauded investors and insurers, homeowners and the unemployed.

Bank of America will allow a limited number of distressed or underwater homeowners in New York State to become renters of their own properties.

Verizon said it will not institute a fee for online or telephone payments, one day after announcing it would start charging customers $2 to do so. 

Bank of America, which now owns mortgage giant Countrywide Financial, will pay $335 million for Countrywide discriminating against minorities during the 2004-2008 housing boom. Countrywide brokers are accused of steering blacks and Latinos into more costly home loans than white borrowers with the same financial profile. An estimated 200,000 people were affected.

Bank of America agreed to pay $315 million to settle claims by investors that they were misled about mortgage-backed investments sold by its Merrill Lynch unit.

Earlier this morning, The Takeaway reported on Bank of America's reversal on its plan to charge customers a $5 monthly fee for using debit cards. Public outrage coupled with over 300,000 signatures to a Change.org petition calling for Bank of America to drop the fee led to the reversal. Molly Katchpole, the woman who spearheaded the public effort to get B of A to reverse their position, talks about her victory.

Remember the $5 monthly fee Bank of America planned to roll out for all its debit card customers? In a complete reversal, the bank now — one month later — says it's dropping plans to introduce that fee. It’s a big victory for the 200,000 customers who signed a petition on Change.org calling for Bank of America to drop this fee.

Bank of America has scrapped plans to levy a $5 a month fee on debit card users, following public outcry.

Bank of America and Goldman Sachs are scheduled to release their earnings reports for the third quarter today. Yesterday, Citigroup reported a 74 percent rise in their earnings and Wells Fargo reported a 21 percent increase, and last week JP Morgan reported a 4 percent fall in profits. Morgan Stanley and U.S. Bancorp are expected to release their reports on Wednesday.

When Bank of America announced that they were introducing a new $5 monthly fee for debit cards many customers were outraged. One of those customers is 22-year-old Molly Katchpole. She started an online petition at Change.org. The petition reads: "The American people bailed out Bank of America during a financial crisis the banks helped create... You paid zero dollars in federal income last year. And now your bank is profiting, raking in $2 billion in profits last quarter alone. How can you justify squeezing another $60 a year from your debit card customers? This is despicable." According to Katchpole, more than 200 thousand people added their signature to her petition — and the bank took notice.

Bank of America's decision to charge customers $5 per month to use debit cards has prompted many, including President Obama, to criticize the banking giant. Other large banks, including Chase, Wells Fargo, SunTrust, and HSBC, are following suit, with plans to charge their customers varying monthly debit card fees. This leaves many Americans wondering what steps they should take next, and where they should do their banking.

For millions of Americans, debit cards have become a free and easy way to make their purchases. Last week, Bank of America announced that starting next year, it will charge its customers $5 a month to use debit cards. Other banks have begun to follow suit — Wells Fargo and Chase are charging $3 monthly debit card fees, while SunTrust is also charging $5. President Obama has expressed his distaste with this decision, saying "My hope is that you're going to see a bunch of banks say to themselves, 'You know what? This is actually not good business practice.'"

Last week and today, we've been covering added charges for basic banking needs as well as the Wall St. protest movement that seems to be emerging. Tomorrow, we plan to speak to a person from a big bank — or at least, someone who represents their point of view. We want to ask them questions from listeners. What would you ask a representative of big banks? 

Last week, Bank of America announced that it would begin imposing a $5 monthly fee for checking accounts that use debit cards. Other large banks are expected to follow suit. We asked listeners for their reactions to these new charges, and received many responses, including this from J.B. from Massachusetts:

I am a BofA customer and I am not happy about the fee. I use my debit card all the time instead of a credit card, but that will change based on principle. I wonder, how big were bonuses last year and how big will they be this year? I wish they would look inside BofA for ways to save. Maybe cutting back $1 million from the CFO would help the bottom line as well!