Kai Risdahl

We'll have the details when we do the numbers.

The death of the American mall has been fodder for the business press for a good long while now.

Present company included, to be completely transparent.

Malls, department stores, also specifically Macy's.

But the retailer does kind of look like it's turning things around.

On its earnings call this morning, the company, which also owns Bloomingdale's and Blue Mercury, said sales are up for a fourth straight quarter.

Marketplace's Kristen Schwab has more on that one.

We're at the tail end of a 15-year stretch now in which the average number of new banks created every year in this economy has fallen to its lowest level since the 1960s.

According to S&P Global, in 2023, only four new bank charters were approved.

But I said tail end of that stretch because we do seem to be at the beginning of something of a banking boom.

Stacey Cowley is a business reporter at The New York Times.

She wrote recently about the race that companies are in to secure banking charters.

Stacey, welcome to the program.

Good to have you on.

Thanks for having me.

Can I ask a very basic question here to start?

What is a bank charter?

And the White House, you write in this piece, wants more companies, and I'm leaving that very vague because that's the point of this interview in this piece.

He, the president, and the White House want more companies to apply for federal banking charters, right?

Okay, let's talk about motivation here for the first part.