Feb 14
China has given permission to Citigroup Inc. to issue credit cards within the communist country, a move which comes amid a probe by the World Trade Organization on the legality of Chinese restrictions on allowing foreign companies to process transactions.
Citigroup will be the first western bank to infiltrate China, and only the second along side Hong Kong based Bank of East Asia which first entered the Chinese market in 2008.
Currently, banks that wish to process within the country must co-brand with operators in the country and issue the cards in yuan.
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Feb 06
As an old relationship adage goes, “Opposites attract,” so might your credit scores. Many marriages seem to unite polar opposite credit scores.
If your credit score is poor, but your spouse’s is good, is there hope for qualifying for a better credit card, auto loan, or mortgage?
The short answer is, “Yes.” However, there are a few things to consider when you and your spouse are applying for new credit.
When Buying a Home
If you’re married and want to buy a home, owning and financing the house together is common. But keep in mind that if you are applying for a mortgage together, your mortgage lender will look at both credit profiles.
Both of your credit scores, lines of open credit, credit payment history and especially any prior mortgage payment history will all be examined together.
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Jan 21
Consumers in the U.S. continue to pay down credit card debt and make credit card payments on time, Equifax said in a recent report.
According to Equifax’s latest National Credit Trends Report, U.S. credit card users have made steady improvement in the last 18 months. All told, 2011 say credit card write-offs by banks tumble 39 percent year-over-year.
“Declining write-offs, growing card originations and the stabilizing of card balances are a precursor to balance increases, which can help to return the banks to profitability in this lending sector,” Michael Koukounas, Senior Vice President of Special Client Services for Equifax, said in a statement.
Bank credit card write-offs ended 2011 at 5.53 percent of accounts – a 39 percent decrease from 2010 write-offs.
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Jan 13
House Speaker John Boehner this week called for “honest conversations” about Medicare.
Fair enough. Let’s begin this honest discussion by admitting no one knows for sure how to reduce Medicare costs. And that’s a problem, because Medicare expenditures are projected to grow almost 6% a year for the rest of the decade.
To understand why program costs are exploding, you just have to look through the annual Medicare Trustees report on the financial condition of the program. The 2011 report comes out on Friday, but it will surely have the same analysis you can find in all the other reports. If you want to engage in this honest discussion, a good place to start is on page 45 of the 2010 report. There you will find the four trends driving Medicare costs:
- Growth in the number of beneficiaries
- Increases in the prices paid per service, which reflect both higher wages for health care workers and higher prices for the goods and services purchased by health care providers
- Increases in the average number of services per beneficiary
- Increases in the average complexity of services
Let’s take these one at a time.
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Jan 08
In keeping with its apparent policy of releasing important economic reports late on Friday afternoons in the hope that no one will notice them, the Obama administration published new estimates of the so-called tax gap on Jan. 6. They deserve more attention.
For many years, the Internal Revenue Service has been studying the tax gap, which is the difference between aggregate tax liabilities and revenue collected. The data just released are for the 2006 tax year and update the most recent previous data, which were for the 2001 tax year.
According to the study, in 2006 Americans owed $450 billion more in federal taxes than they paid, an increase of $105 billion over 2001. The I.R.S. estimates that the compliance rate declined slightly to 83.1 percent in 2006, from 83.7 percent in 2001. In other words, people voluntarily pay only about 84 percent of the taxes they owe.
The I.R.S. estimates that enforcement actions will eventually bring in some of the uncollected revenue.
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Jan 01
Chip and PIN credit cards are common in Canada and Europe, but has not yet become popular in the United States due to the technology and expense required to switch from magnetic stripe readers to Chip and PIN credit card processing equipment. Chip and PIN credit cards are considered more difficult for thieves to steal credit card numbers through skimming and forgery crimes.
Foreign Travelers
People living in the United States who travel frequently overseas have found it difficult to use their regular credit cards once they arrive at their destination. Many Canadian and European merchants no longer have equipment to process credit cards via the magnetic strip found on all US credit cards. For frequent travelers out of the United States, it is recommended that individuals obtain Chip and PIN based credit cards. Chase Bank is among a handful of issuers of US credit cards that also feature Chip and PIN features that can be used overseas.
What is Chip and PIN?
Instead of information being stored on a magnetic strip plastered across the back of a credit card, Chip and PIN cards store information on a microchip hidden inside the credit card. Credit card processing equipment reads the data via radio frequency, and do not require physically swiping the card through a reader. Instead of a signature on a recipe, cardholders enter a personal identification number (PIN) to verify the card. This security is considered safer than traditional magnetic strip credit cards, and harder for criminals to obtain your information with skimming or forgery type frauds.
In fact, Europe has been using Chip and PIN credit card processing since 2006 and reports significant decreases in credit card related fraud. France reports an 80% decrease in credit card fraud.
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