Terms & Conditions
Why does it feel like the economy runs on rules nobody explained to us?
Terms & Conditions explores the hidden systems behind money, technology, wealth, opportunity, and public life — and the people working to build something better.
Hosted by
Chastity Murphy
Policy Strategist & Former U.S. Treasury Advisor
Host
Chastity Murphy
Featured Episode
Who Owns the Payment Rails?
Dr. Sarah Chen — Senior Fellow, Payments Policy Institute
Every digital transaction travels across infrastructure owned by a handful of companies. We trace the history of payment networks, the concentration of power, and what a public alternative might look like.
Featured Essay
The Infrastructure We Don't See
On payment networks, public goods, and why visibility matters
The hidden plumbing of economic life was built by private actors to serve private interests. It's time to make it visible — and ask who it should serve.
Explore Topics
Banking
Who controls the systems that hold and move money — and who gets left out.
Payments
The invisible rails under every swipe, tap, and transfer.
Financial Infrastructure
The plumbing of economic life: payment networks, clearing systems, and credit architecture.
Wealth
How wealth is built, transferred, and blocked — and by whom.
Consumer Protection
The rules that govern what companies can take from you — and what they can get away with.
AI & Technology
Algorithms deciding credit, insurance, and opportunity — often without explanation.
Privacy & Surveillance
Every transaction leaves a trace. Who owns it, and what they do with it.
Public Banking
The case for financial infrastructure as public infrastructure.
Financial Inclusion
Why millions remain outside the financial system — and what it costs them.
Economic Democracy
Who gets a voice in the rules governing economic life.
More Episodes
The Unbanked and the Underbanked
Marcus Williams — Director of Financial Equity, National Consumer Law Center
An estimated 5.9 million U.S. households have no bank account. We examine why, who bears the cost, and what policy can do.
Your Credit Score: A Short History
Prof. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor — Professor of African American Studies, Northwestern University
Credit scoring was designed to remove human bias from lending decisions. Instead, it encoded structural inequality into an algorithm.
Understanding the systems that shape economic life
Most people interact with financial systems every day without understanding the institutions and decisions that shape them. Terms & Conditions examines those systems and the people working to build, regulate, reform, and challenge them.
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Companion essays, episode notes, and reading lists. A publication exploring the hidden rules of economic life — delivered every time a new episode drops.