February 24, 2010 – 3:23 pm
This week, the Credit CARD Act of 2009 finally goes into effect. Some parts of the law were phased in as early as August of last year, but consumers had to wait until now for most of the biggest changes. For the most part, the new rules will just stop problems before they start – [...]
January 15, 2010 – 5:48 pm
Booking your spring break trip to Cancun soon? Here’s something to keep in mind: Almost every major credit card carries an “international conversion surcharge” of up to 5 percent on every purchase you charge in a foreign country. The fee isn’t listed separately on your bill so you wouldn’t even know anything fishy was afoot [...]
December 22, 2009 – 4:20 pm
Welcome to this week’s edition of our Tuesday Top 5, Econ4U’s weekly tips post to help you manage your money in five easy steps. I was recently reviewing the Survey of Consumer Finances, published earlier this year using data from 2007. I thought it was interesting that only 46.2 percent of American households reported having credit-card [...]
August 18, 2009 – 1:09 pm
At the risk of sounding smug, sometimes I feel like I’ve mastered the credit card game. I get 1 percent cash back on my rewards card. And because I pay it off in full every month and it has no annual fee, my credit card bank is essentially paying me a dividend on top of [...]
August 10, 2009 – 7:05 pm
While reading the Washington Post website this morning I noticed a report that Capital One is suffering thanks to better cardholder behavior. I guess good news for consumers is often times bad news for banks. It seems that Capital One’s customers have become better at paying their bills on time and not going over their [...]
A new study predicts that the credit card industry “will continue to provide one of the most lucrative returns…within banks’ portfolios.” Though President Obama signed into law new regulations on credit card companies in May, many companies in the industry continue to report strong profits. The analysis comes from Keefe, Bruyette, and Woods (KBW), an [...]
Credit card companies are revealing some unintended consequences of the new credit reform bill that was signed into law today. As we’ve mentioned before, some parts of the bill — like requiring larger print on credit agreements — give consumers a fair shake. But it also means banks may start charging interest on accounts that [...]
A credit card can be a convenient way to manage your expenses, or an expensive way to rack up debt and exorbitant fees. If the U.S. Senate passes the credit card reform bill it’s considering this week, that could change. The bill would overhaul a lot of the regulations governing credit card agreements, and has [...]
Before the financial crisis I, like most Americans, received a lot of credit card offers in the mail. What used to be a steady stream has now slowed to a trickle so I’m paying a little more attention to the occasional “good deal” teaser offer. Last week one of them caught my eye. Capital One [...]
February 16, 2009 – 4:28 pm
Sens. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Carl Levin (D-MI) today introduced a new bill to help shield credit card holders from exorbitant fees and penalty interest rates. The legislation would, amongst other things, restrict credit card companies from charging customers for snail mail or telephone payments, institute a number of restrictions on how card issuers can [...]
