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Dozens of companies report earnings this week, and analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters are anticipating lots of strong quarterly reports. Among those posting improved results should be Microsoft and Visa. However, likely to post losses are Office Depot and Sprint Nextel.

With all the Nobel Prizes being awarded this week, I am reminded that Mohammed Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for founding Grameen Bank, a micro-lender to the very poor. Yunus's idea was to use finance to help needy people in Bangladesh dig themselves out of poverty. But micro-lenders in...

Visa Inc. (V), which owns the largest credit-card network, said today it has renewed its sponsorship agreement with the National Football League for five years. The agreement extends Visa's alliance with the NFL through the 2014 season. Though Visa advertises with other leagues, its deepest...

Oklahoma small businessman Willie Rosseett was recently stunned when he learned that Discover Financial Services Inc. (DFS) had canceled his credit card. "We have never been late and always paid them more than the minimum," said Rosseett, who owns ARDCO, a maker of circuit boards. "There is nothing...

Whether it's by choice or out of necessity, U.S. consumers are cutting back on borrowing like never before, according to Federal Reserve data. Financially hobbled banks are reluctant to lend. And with unemployment rising and housing prices still falling, consumers are hesitant to borrow. Those...

Battered by surging unemployment and plunging home values, Americans are keeping their credits cards in their wallets and using debit cards instead, according to data released by Visa (V) and MasterCard (MA). "Consumers clearly prefer debit," says Christopher Brendler, an analyst with Stifel...

Banks and companies like American Express (AXP) are having trouble with the credit card business because they actually loan money. Visa (V) does not. It simply acts as a middleman for the card transactions and that is still a good business, even in a tight credit environment. Visa's net income...

For years, we became so accustomed to consumer credit going up, up and up, it was one measure of the economy that seemed infinite. In February, however, consumers proved gravity, cutting their borrowings for the fourth time in the last six months. Consumer credit outstanding fell by an adjusted...