Best Credit Cards for You!

CRAs

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is targeting consumer reporting agencies (CRAs) with at least $7 million in annual revenue, which includes 30 companies, representing 94 percent of the market and 7 percent of the companies.  The 30 include the three major consumer credit bureaus – Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. The main consumer complaints about them are the difficulty in updating reports and in correcting errors.

Collection Agencies

Approximately 175 debt collection agencies with annual revenue of at least $10 million are being targeted. The three major types of companies in the debt collection industry are: firms that collect debt owned by another company for a fee; firms that buy the debt and collect for themselves; and debt collection attorneys and law firms that collect through litigation.

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Tags: Agencies, Reporting Agencies

With all of the recent hype over Suze Ormans new debit card, its no wonder why many folks think its better to use a debt card versus a credit card. But for many folks that would be a mistake.

The obvious reason many folks do this is to avoid getting into debt on a credit card and the high interest rates and fees that apply when you carry a balance. But if you resolve to never carry a balance, then a credit card is a far superior purchasing tool than any debit card, for the following reasons:

Protect from fraud: When you make a purchase with a credit card, there is a firewall between your bank account and the vendor. First, there is a federal law that provides protections unique to credit cards. Then there is this example: When you purchase something on your credit card, a bank issuing the credit card makes the payment to the vendor.

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Tags: Debit, Debit Cards

The Commonwealth Bank offers a wide range of credit cards for people to choose from, but if standard options are holding you back an upgrade to gold could be the answer.

Whether it is the Low Rate, Low Fee or Awards credit card, the Commonwealth Bank offers more premium gold options for people who want more benefits, including higher credit limits.

All of Commbank’s credit cards list the minimum credit limits available, which gives potential cardholders some idea of where the line will start.

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Tags: Commonwealth Bank, Credit Card, Options

Overall the financial institutions have not kept up with increased security demands in authentication. Fraud prevention has declined from 79 percent of the financial institutions meeting the criteria in 2009 to only 54 percent in 2011. Javelin made changes to the scorecard to keep up with the fraud demands, but the banks in general did not.

Use of SSNs

All of those evaluated used partial or full Social Security numbers (SSNs) to authenticate their customers via the phone, mail or Internet.  Their focus was not in authentication, but in browser security (40 percent) and partnering with security vendors (24 percent).

FIs need to end their drug-like dependency on using full or truncated SSNs for authentication purposes, said Phil Blank, Managing Director, Security, Risk, and Fraud at Javelin. SSN has become a popular security question these days and is a commonly phished item by fraudsters.

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A growing number of states are seeking shiny new currencies made of silver and gold.

Worried that the Federal Reserve and the U.S. dollar are on the brink of collapse, lawmakers from 13 states, including Minnesota, Tennessee, Iowa, South Carolina and Georgia, are seeking approval from their state governments to either issue their own alternative currency or explore it as an option. Just three years ago, only three states had similar proposals in place.

“In the event of hyperinflation, depression, or other economic calamity related to the breakdown of the Federal Reserve System the States governmental finances and private economy will be thrown into chaos,” said North Carolina Republican Representative Glen Bradley in a currency bill he introduced last year.

Unlike individual communities, which are allowed to create their own currency as long as it is easily distinguishable from U.S.

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Tags: Currencies Made, Gold