New Credit Card Products for College Students
One of the primary goals of the 2009 CARD Act was to significantly cripple credit card companies and their efforts of wooing college students via tables set up on campus with free gifts for those who applied for new credit cards.
Now, though, theres a new marketing effort prepaid cards. And its all legal and its working like a charm. College students are in the bulls eye once again, this time, though, the risks are fewer. One of the biggest supporters is American Express and its introduced its own product for college students.
The Campus Edition Prepaid Card by American Express was unveiled this week.
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Weighing In on Consumer Agency’s Action on Upfront Card Fees
Updated: Friday, 6:40 p.m. to add bureau comment.
I wrote a story for Thursdays paper about a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposal that would actually make it easier for credit card issuers to charge hefty upfront fees.
To quickly recap: A relatively new law said that credit card issuers had to limit the fees they could charge to borrowers in the year after the account was opened. So after some card issuers started charging application or processing fees before consumers’ accounts were opened, regulators added a rule applying the fee limit to those upfront charges, too. T
Is a Home Equity Loan Right For You?
Three years ago, discerning whether a home equity loan was a good choice was much simpler. As we know, though, a lot has changed and now, many Americans are asking themselves if now is a good time. Here are a few considerations to keep in mind if youre pondering the pros and cons of these types of mortgages.
Many homeowners were deeply affected by the economic problems of recent years. They had already taken out second mortgages or other home equity lines of credit (HELOC) at the worst possible time.
They were already close to their appraised values and then, when the job losses began coming on a daily basis, hundreds of thousands lost their homes as a result.
Post Tags: Equity Loan Home Equity Home Equity Loan Loan
Credit Card Rewards Are Better than Ever
Weve been covering the rapidly improving quality of credit card reward offers in the U.S. in a series of articles on our blog for the past year. And its been quite a story. Card issuers began ramping up their rewards programs somewhere in late 2010, even as their charge-off and delinquency rates were still at near record-high levels. Then the issuers gradually whipped themselves into a rewards frenzy, frantically trying to outdo the competitions latest incredibly attractive offer. The result is that Americans with very good credit scores are now getting the best credit card offers ever.
Ruth Simon has done a lot of work to bring us up to speed on the current state of affairs in an excellent piece for the WSJ and she finds that credit card rewards programs just keep getting better.
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Sign On Bonuses Raise the Ante
For some time, weve known credit card companies have been in heated competition for your loyalty. Everything from lower APR, to waived annual fees to bonuses that are designed to impress, its all about bringing the American consumer back into the credit-fied world.
Unfortunately, the credit card industry has faced tough scrutiny when it comes to federal laws. These new laws and regulations have significantly limited the fees they can charge, which is good for Suzy Shopper, but in many ways, also ups the competition factor. Its not realistic for the collective industry to keep dropping interest rates, so theyre devising clever ways to draw us in.
Post Tags: Bonuses Bonuses Raise
A New Credit Card Lets Customers Make The Rules
The product development team at Barclaycard is well aware that banks don’t rank very high in the realm of public opinion. So they’ve created a new kind of credit card that tries to put you, the cardholder, in the driver’s seat.
Its calling the new card the Barclaycard Ring MasterCard the first social credit card, one that will be shaped by its cardholders feedback. And this isn’t simply about personalizing your plastic with pictures of puppies and kittens or picking a convenient payment date. Barclaycard is taking matters a step further: it’s pulling back the curtain on its profit and loss statements — and it says it’s going to let consumers collect a share of the profits.
You might be thinking, as I was, ‘I barely have time to pay my credit card bills. Now you want me
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One-upping Google, Facebook Has Become a Payments Platform
In its S-1 filing (a securities registration statement) with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Facebook is telling us that in 2011 it generated $557 million in revenue from payments and other fees. That is up by 425 percent from the $106 million total for 2010, which itself was up by 715 percent from the 2009 total of $13 million.
The social networks only other revenue source is advertising, which, while still far bigger in absolute terms, is quickly decreasing as a share of the overall total. In 2009 advertising had a share of more than 98 percent, which by the end of 2010 had decreased to less than 95 percent and last year it shrank to 85 percent.
Post Tags: Payments Payments Platform
Qualify for Tax Exemption on Forgiven Credit Card Debt?
With tax season just around the corner, nows a good time for consumers to familiarize themselves on the various tax laws especially if theyre filing their own taxes. Recently, a tax advocacy group says more people qualify for a tax exemption on forgiven credit card debt and often dont even realize it.
The biggest reason consumers dont tax advantage of this opportunity is because they arent even aware that it exists.
Post Tags: Tax Tax Exemption
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