Although they wield a tremendous amount of power of us, they have virtually no regulation. They can do as they please. Since it isn't their problem if you get whacked, they don't care. Until very recently, you had to PAY THEM to see your OWN information!
About 10-20 years ago, before the big bank mega-mergers, many modest sized banks (ie 10 branch offices) balanced their books to the penny every day. Every bad transaction was chased down and researched. But when these small banks were bought out into the huge ones, they stopped getting down to that level of accuracy. Once you do that, the opportunity for fraud, either against the bank or a customer becomes much greater, esp if the thief is smart enough to keep it below the radar threshold (and many thieves do just that).
I was recently on a day trip and spent about $200 in buy stuff. Most I put on my credit card. I didn't really want to (per the above), but I didn't have that much free cash on me. One transaction was only $4 for subway but the cash machine wasn't working so I had to use a card to get in.
If one goes into a bank to check on intermediate transactions they will CHARGE you a service fee; even though you're saving them from fraud charges.
Banking deregulation, which was passed in 1979 under the Carter Adm, was the dumbest thing. More recent law relaxations, such as the end of Glass-Stegal will hurt things even more.
The Savings & Loan scandal of the 1980s pretty much passed over most of us because, unlike New Orleans, there were no tearful mayors crying "help us! help us!" on camera. The liberals ignored it since they're clueless about money and business issues and their pet groups weren't involved. The conservatives ignored since they didn't want prying eyes into their world.
In the 1930s, the business community utterly despised Franklin Roosevelt for his numerous reform laws. Yet it was FDR who SAVED the business community from ruin since it couldn't regulate itself and the control was ripe for a revolution that would've destroyed everything.
I just wish today's liberals and unions* would stop fighting the battles of the 1930s and recognize the issues of the modern day. Memoirs by Eleanor Roosevelt and aides of LaGuardia clearly show the mistakes liberals made in the 1930s and 1940s, but today's activists completely ignore that experience.
*A union activist came to our worksite to organize and talked to us -- office workers -- as if we were coal miners of the 1800s. She didn't realize the days of the Molly Maguires were gone and we already had things like a steady salary, many fringe benefits, air conditioning, breaks, flex time, etc., and didn't have mining tunnels collapsing on us.