When you go shopping, you are probably used to being asked if you’d like to sign up for a store credit card, and get 10% or more off your purchase. These offers can be tempting. Often, they are good. But here’s a word of warning: if you’re not going to pay your credit card in full each month, don’t use a store brand credit card.
According to a recent report, the average store credit card charges a steep 23.43% interest rate. And two-thirds of them charge an annual percentage rate...
A big emergency like a hurricane or earthquake can be hazardous to more than just your life and your home, according to the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC). It can also impact your finances—and your credit score, if you are unable to pay bills for a period of time.
This may not seem like such a big deal, in comparison to the other things that can happen when a big storm or other natural disaster hits. However, financial disasters are real as well, and can have a long-term...
Online shoppers will be able to check out with Visa Checkout at more sites than ever before, as the service expands to include 33 new merchants, including Best Buy, Under Armour, and Barnes & Noble. People will even be able to check out at fast food restaurants using their mobile devices, as Taco Bell adds Visa Checkout.
Visa Checkout is an online service that lets shoppers store their shipping information and payment method in a secure data cloud. When using Visa Checkout, people...
If you’ve got Apple Pay or Google Wallet on your smartphone and you frequently shop at Rite Aid, it’s time to celebrate. The company announced that they began accepting mobile payments this month.
In addition to Apple Pay and Google Wallet, Rite Aid also accepts tap and pay credit and debit cards, and they will accept Android Pay, coming soon from Google.
This will streamline the payment process that the drugstore checkout line and bring Rite Aid into the 21st century when it comes to...
Corporate travelers have a new option for planning their business trips. Orbitz for Business has partnered with Visa to create Visa Travel Manager, which is scheduled to debut in October 2015.
The program is designed to give companies a window into the way their employees spend on travel, as well as make reservation booking, account reconciliation, and reporting easier and more efficient. A payment portal and booking tool on the front end of Visa Travel Manager will act like the Orbitz...
Warm weather means backyard barbecues, summer vacations, and lots of weddings. If any of your friends are getting hitched this year, you may want to think twice before agreeing to serve as a bridesmaid or a groomsman. A recent survey from TD Bank revealed that being a member of the wedding party is more expensive than people think.
The TD Canada Trust Bridal Party Wars poll included responses from 6,150 Canadians ages 18 and up. A subset of 1,350 Millennials and Generation X respondents who...
The majority of young people have no plan in place to achieve their financial goals, according to a recent survey by iQuantifi, a virtual financial advising company catering to Millennials and young families.
Millennials, defined in the survey as people between the ages of 21 and 34, do have financial goals, whether or not they have a plan to make them into reality. Only 20% of those surveyed said they had a plan to for reaching financial goals—even though 72% did report having certain...
The director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Richard Cordray, believes that the United States is facing a crisis when it comes to financial education. He also thinks that it is more difficult that ever before to navigate the financial world—making it even more critical that people get a good financial education.
This lack of financial education leads to people not being financially stable, going into debt, and generally feeling unhappy and stressed.
Cordray offered...
In order to provide greater insight into economic trends and consumer habits, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has announced plans to monitor up to four out of five credit card transactions over the next twelve months. It will gather this information through a controversial data-mining program that has been in place for several months.
Data suggests that more than one billion credit cards were used in 2012 and amounted to a total number of 53 billion transactions. This means that the...
It seems that lending and credit giant JPMorgan just cannot catch a break when it comes to federal scrutiny of its business practices. Last week, the lender was served with separate notices from regulators that its business practices in regards to credit cards and the need to pony up refunds as a result of its actions harmed millions of consumers.
At the heart of the issue is how the lender pursued the collection of debt from consumers who had defaulted on their credit cards. Regulators...
As the housing market continues to recover and interest rates increase slowly but surely, more and more banks have considered what this means for their bottom line. In the wake of the recession, credit card usage plummeted and left many banks and financial institutions with an increasing amount of delinquent debt and fewer ways in which to generate revenue. Unfortunately, credit card use had to be restricted in many cases in order to avoid more of the same.
As mortgage rates hit historic...
If the classic metric of increased credit card spending equates a stronger economy, then some good news is upon us: credit card debt has increased for the first time since 2008. The credit card trends report released by Equifax this week shows that the total balance of credit cards in the United States increased by 0.6% between the second quarters of 2012 and 2013 – something that has not occurred since the first quarter of 2008.
While the increase was fairly minuscule - $536 billion in...