A new line of personal loans is targeting people trying to pay off credit card debt. Goldman Sachs, one of the biggest banks in the United States, has named their new product “Marcus,” after their founder, and put out a series of advertisements on streaming services like YouTube, Pandora and Hulu.
Marcus aims to give folks another option for paying off a large credit card balance that they may be carrying at a high interest rate. “Debt happens,” says the commercial. “It’s how you...
As the magic hour when the credit card bill becomes active approaches, credit card companies are scrambling to tighten up credit and raise interest rates to ensure that, with the bill in place, they can still keep their profit margins.
One of the most controversial amendments in the credit card bill will stop credit card companies from arbitrarily hiking up their interest rates and fees. As a result, most credit card companies are making their interest and fee changes now, while the credit...
Many thought that the credit card bill would be the end of high interest rates and fees in credit cards, not least among them the lawmakers in Congress and the consumer advocates who backed the bill aggressively when it was still being debated.
However, the leeway of several months that government has given credit card companies to adapt their business to the new legislation seems to have had a very nasty side effect. Now, credit card companies are using the available time to raise their...
As the economy continues to remain weak, American consumers are becoming more and more desperate on where to turn to for financial security. Job security is also at an all time low, with unemployment at an all time high. Because of a drastically decreased monthly income, more and more consumers are now forced to rely on credit instead. Unfortunately, credit card companies are currently engaged in putting the squeeze on credit and, as a result, on credit card users.
When the economic crisis...
While the credit card crisis continues, credit cardholders are facing numerous financial challenges ranging from sky high interest rates and fees to credit card limits dropping as fast as they pay their card balances. It seems that, with the profiteering-prohibitive credit card bill looming up for activation, credit card companies are pulling out all stops to generate as much revenue as they can and to cover their exposure to the current financial crisis. So far, this has meant raising interest...
Continue readingConsumers heaved a sigh of relief when, last May, President Barack Obama signed into law the credit card bill which was fast tracked through Congress and released also this May. Consumers are seeing the credit card bill as a great equalizer which will give them better control over their credit and curtail the unfair and abusive practices of credit card companies.
However, credit industry insiders are warning that the credit card bill may not be as consumer friendly as it sounds.
For the...
When the credit card bill was released, merchants were less than pleased that they had been left out.
While addressing many unfair credit industry practices such as unfairly high interest rates and fees and obfuscated business practices, the credit car bill left out merchant's pet credit industry peeve: interchange fees.
Merchants pay an interchange fee every time their customers buy from them using credit cards. These fees average at about 1.75 percent of a credit cardholder's purchase...
The credit card crunch has every American cardholder scratching their heads on how to keep their finances afloat, especially in this bad economic times.
The problem of credit card debt has ballooned ever since the economic downturn first began. Credit card companies, getting burdened by huge profit losses, are trying to bail out themselves by passing it down to their customers. The result: high interest rates and astronomical fees. Clearly, if you have any type of credit card debt now, you...
The economic crash caught many American consumers in surprise. However, financial analysts and watchers have said that it was a long time in coming.
For several years, American consumers had gone on a spending spree with their credit cards without really taking into account what the final costs would be. When the financial crash happened, credit industry experts saw that the soaring credit card debt played a large role in it.
The Federal Reserve maintains a survey of the total revolving...
Senator Evan Bayh made a stop in Fort Wayne last Wednesday to hold a dialog regarding the recently passed credit card bill and what it will mean for consumers. One of the hottest topics was the credit card industry's assertion that responsible credit cardholders will be the ones getting penalized because of the practices of bad credit cardholders once the bill becomes active.
According to Sen. Bayh, the regulations included in the credit card bill are specifically designed to protect and...
The credit card industry is in an uproar over the legislations in the recently passed credit card bill. The credit card bill is aimed at legislating many credit card industry practices that cardholders see as unfair and deceitful. For the credit card industry, the credit card bill is a disastrous piece of legislation which will destroy their profitability and, according to them, limit the available credit for American consumers.
During the past few years, the credit card industry has enjoyed...
The passage of the credit card bill has gone remarkably fast. The House version passed during the last days of April and the Senate version just got passed last week. A few days later and President Barack Obama signed the bill into law.
Credit cardholders are excited to finally see some sensible regulation for credit cards. Long feeling oppressed and frustrated by arbitrary interest rate increases and unreasonable fees, credit cardholders have been pressing for the passage of the credit card...