remittances

In a joint effort with PayPal, Facebook launched a new app this week that could remake the money-transfer business. We test drove Send Money, a cheap -- sometimes free -- method for moving funds between you and members of your social network.

On Thursday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau officially opens for business. Even as the political fight continues over just how potent the agency will be, at root, its mission is to make clear the prices and risks of financial products and services. Here's where it will focus its early effort.

If you want to know how the rural developing world could get cheap, easy wireless Internet access, just follow the money: Remittances to those regions total tens of billions each year, and the money flow isn't very efficient. The profits from micro-telcos taking over the business could prime the pump for an information revolution in the hinterlands.

Western Union (WU) is expanding into the business of prepaid debit and credit cards, and Wyclef Jean is selling them softly with his song and his star power. Jean, the Grammy-winning rapper and former Fugee, is helping the money-sending service launch a co-branded prepaid Visa gift card, just in...