In a sting operation backed by the People (a British newspaper), reporters from the paper caught various retailers selling pre paid credit cards without ID checks. Kids are known to use these cards for purchasing alcohol, weapons and gambling online.

From it’s research, the People established that that UK youngsters can obtain pre-payment cards for as little as £3 from shops and newsagents with negligible checks on age, name or address.

These cards can then be used by youngsters to buy adult goods and services online.

The teenager used by the …

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From Credit Card Cool - www.creditcardcool.com

According to USA Today, Steve Case, former chairman of AOL, is backing a new type of credit card called the RevolutionCard. Designed to compete against the entrenched companies in payment systems, its features include: a line of credit the ability to store up to $15,000 on the card (loaded electronically from the user’s bank account) free […]

According to USA Today, Steve Case, former chairman of AOL, is backing a new type of credit card called the RevolutionCard. Designed to compete against the entrenched companies in payment systems, its features include:

• a line of credit
• the ability to store up to $15,000 on the card (loaded electronically from the user’s bank account)
• free online payments
• interest rates pegged to the card holder’s credit rating
• beefed up identify-theft protection:
  • PIN-based, with no name or account number on the card
  • Allows creation of temporary one-use PINs

In addition to these unique features, RevolutionCard intends to carve its niche by offering low fees to both consumers and merchants. For instance, merchants will only be charged 0.5% of the sales price per transaction processed. Consumers will save money with free online payments (similar to Paypal), no annual fee and interest rates based upon the customer’s current credit score.

Of course, ramping up card acceptance to critical mass will be a significant challenge, but currently the card does claim acceptance by about 100,000 merchants including Barnes & Noble. Its goal is to reach 7 million merchants in 3 years.

To find more information, see www.revolutionmoney.com. To apply for a card, see www.revolutioncard.com.

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From Credit Card Watcher - www.creditcardwatcher.com

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From Business Credit Cards Blog - www.businesscreditcards.cc/creditcards/bcc-blog.htm

Summary [Dave Birch] In the U.S. ATM fees are going up, as they should be: the average number of transactions per ATM has fallen by (if my arithmetic is correct) about two-thirds over the last decade. Therefore the cost per transaction should have gone up quite a bit. Bank of America’s decision to raise the cost of an ATM withdrawal to $3 may be calculating (because they have more deposit accounts and associated ATMs across the nation than others, so they have the strongest potential to gain rather than lose. Meanwhile, in the U.K., there are going to be more “free” ATMs: 600 more, in fact. The government, via the Treasury, has struck a deal with banks and cash machine operators to increase free access to cash. Ed Balls said:

The free cash machines…

I didn’t read any further, because they’re not free, of course. They are paid for by other bank customers. The deal is that to persuade the cash machine operators to set up and maintain cash machines free-of-charge, banks and building societies agreed to pay a ‘financial inclusion premium’. This scheme, which will compensate cash machine operators for the expected lower cash machine-use in these areas, began on 1 March 2007 and will be funded through the transaction fee banks and building societies are charged when their customers use other cash machines.

Technorati Tags: ATM, costs, government

One thing that ATMs in the U.K. don’t do is to dispense fivers any more. The governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, was worried about this because it meant that £5 notes have become “scruffy” and the Bank was going to look at how it can encourage commercial banks to issue more £5 notes, the number of which has fallen compared with other denominations. (This was all before they had other things to worry about, like Northern Rock, for example). Mervyn said the bank had £1bn worth of £5 notes in its vault but commercial banks did not want them. They find it cheaper to issue £10 and £20 notes and so the shortage of new fivers means that the ones in circulation are “noticeably soiled and scruffy”. The British Bankers Association chief executive Angela Knight pointed out that £100 was the average amount taken out of ATMs at one visit. I say stop wasting money on fivers and twenties and above, and just standardise on tens. Much cheaper all round.

These opinions are my own (I think) and presented solely in my capacity as an interested member of the general public [posted with ecto]

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From Digital Money Blog - digitaldebateblogs.typepad.com

How Much Should You Set Aside in an Emergency Fund?

I know this site is usually about credit cards, but personal finance is also an important part of your credit card management and an emergecy fund is an important part of personal finance. Playing Chutes and Ladders should be required for anyone experiencing financial difficulties as a result of overspending. Nearly every financial expert strongly encourages individuals to have an emergency fund set aside. Yet, how many of us actually follow this advice?

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From Credit Card Tips, Etc.h - www.creditcardtipsetc.com

You find something you absolutely have to have, slap down a piece of plastic and voil� – it’s yours! Life sure is good, isn’t it? But have you ever wondered what happens behind the scenes, from the time your credit card gets swiped (actually or virtually) until the time the purchase shows up on your credit card statement? You find something you absolutely have to have, slap down a piece of plastic and voilà – it’s yours! Life sure is good, isn’t it? But have you ever wondered what happens behind the scenes, from the time your credit card gets swiped (actually or virtually) until the time the purchase shows up on your credit card statement?

Anatomy of the credit card

Transmission of the account number, a systematic rather than a random combination of numbers, is where it all starts. The account number identifies: the type of credit card being used (VISA, American Express, etc.), a bank number, an account number and a check digit. In the case of America Express, the third and forth numbers indicate the currency.

Equally important is the magnetic stripe on the back and it tells quite a story. For simplicity, let’s just say the stripe contains the account number, cardholder name, country code, expiration date and other validating information that’s unique to the credit card issuer and the banking industry.

The Credit Card “Family”

Quite a few organizations are involved in the credit card purchase and approval cycle. Here are the major ones:

• Acquiring Bank – The bank that the merchant works with to get credit card purchases converted to cash and deposited into the merchant’s account.
• Association – The family of banks and credit card issuers that are behind a branded card. Fort example: Visa and MasterCard are associations.
• Cardholder – That’s you and anyone else who carries a credit card.
• Independent Sales Organization (ISO) – This is the company that provides basic credit card services to the merchant such as merchant accounts and credit card funding reports.
• Issuing Bank – The financial institution authorized by the Association to issue credit cards to cardholders.
• Merchant – A place of business that is authorized to accept credit cards for purchases.
• Payment Gateway – The company that provides the credit card processing terminals and network that ties the merchant to the credit card processing network.
• Payment Processor – The company that moves the approved funds between the various financial accounts that exist between the cardholder and the merchant’s bank.

Authorization

The multi-step authorization process goes on hundreds of millions of times every day. This behind-the-scenes flow of data forms the foundation of credit card purchasing.

• The cardholder initiates a purchase from a merchant.
• The merchant access the Payment Gateway and transmits the customer’s credit card and purchase details.
• The payment gateway looks up the merchant’s acquiring bank and ISO details and forwards the transaction to the appropriate Payment Processor.
• The payment processor determines the Issuing Bank’s ID and sends the transaction information to that bank.
• The issuing bank verifies the customer’s account status, open-to-buy limits and security details. If everything is in order, the bank deducts the amount of purchase from the cardholder’s available balance (open to buy) and transmits an authorization code back to the payment processor. If there is any problem with the transaction, the issuing bank transmits a “transaction declined” message. In cases of fraud, the bank may also issue an order to pick up the card.
• The payment processor passes the approval or decline code back to the payment gateway.
• The payment gateway passes the approval or decline code back to the Payment Gateway.
• The Payment Gateway displays the message to the merchant who either completes or terminates the transaction.

End of Day Settlement

At the end of each day, the merchant performs a “capture routine” which sends details on all completed transactions to the Payment Gateway. The Payment Gateway passes the data up the chain to the Payment Processor which determines which issuing bank to send the transaction to. The issuing bank electronically transmits the money to the acquiring bank which transmits it to the merchant’s own bank account. And everybody is happy.

This article has been provided by Creditor Web. At CreditorWeb.com you can compare over 100 credit cards from multiple banks and apply for a credit card online. Read more…

Credit Card Articles from CreditorWeb.com - www.creditorweb.com

According to USA Today, Steve Case, former chairman of AOL, is backing a new type of credit card called the RevolutionCard. Designed to compete against the entrenched companies in payment systems, its features include: a line of credit the ability to store up to $15,000 on the card (loaded electronically from the user’s bank account) free […]

According to USA Today, Steve Case, former chairman of AOL, is backing a new type of credit card called the RevolutionCard. Designed to compete against the entrenched companies in payment systems, its features include:

• a line of credit
• the ability to store up to $15,000 on the card (loaded electronically from the user’s bank account)
• free online payments
• interest rates pegged to the card holder’s credit rating
• beefed up identify-theft protection:
  • PIN-based, with no name or account number on the card
  • Allows creation of temporary one-use PINs

In addition to these unique features, RevolutionCard intends to carve its niche by offering low fees to both consumers and merchants. For instance, merchants will only be charged 0.5% of the sales price per transaction processed. Consumers will save money with free online payments (similar to Paypal), no annual fee and interest rates based upon the customer’s current credit score.

Of course, ramping up card acceptance to critical mass will be a significant challenge, but currently the card does claim acceptance by about 100,000 merchants including Barnes & Noble. Its goal is to reach 7 million merchants in 3 years.

To find more information, see www.revolutionmoney.com. To apply for a card, see www.revolutioncard.com.

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From Credit Card Watcher - www.creditcardwatcher.com

The Fair Credit Billing Act is a US federal act that protects many important credit rights including your rights to dispute billing errors, unauthorized use of your account, and charges for unsatisfactory goods and services.

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From Credit Card Cool - www.creditcardcool.com

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From Business Credit Cards Blog - www.businesscreditcards.cc/creditcards/bcc-blog.htm

Summary [Dave Birch] I have to say that I sort of disagree with industry observers who point to NFC security as being the key reason why banks and mobile operators can’t agree on how to secure account and transaction data. The reason why financial institutions have been experimenting with “secure elements” that are separate from the SIM is not because they suspect SIMs to be insecure — apart from anything else the SIMs, secure elements and EMV cards are all using the chips and operating systems — but because they (correctly) suspect SIMs to be under the control of mobile operators. An impasse? No, I don’t think so. A lot has been happening in recent months: I think the mobile operators are being more realistic about the potential business model (ie, not asking for transaction revenues) and banks are being to adjust to the idea of a payment device that the belongs to the customer, not the institution. With services actually launching, it seems to me that the new value network is beginning to co-ordinate ready for 2008. I imagine this is the sort of thing, by the way, that informed people will be discussing at IIR’s Mobile & NFC Payment Strategies conference in Geneva in November.

Technorati Tags: payments

I’m going to be running the pre-conference workshop at the event so I’m really looking forward to it — it won’t be a lecture, it will be a structured workshop to help people to understand how mobile and NFC payments work, how they are being deployed and what kind of factors organisations should be considering in developing their strategies. Incidentally, if you’re going to be in Geneva on 27th November and you’d like to come and join in the workshop, the dear, dear people at IIR have (in an act of astounding generosity) agreed to provide a complimentary workshop place worth EIGHT HUNDRED AND NINETY FIVE of our English pounds to the first blog reader to reply, in the now-traditional fashion, with the name of the hotel that the conference will be held in. Also in the now traditional fashion, the offer is open to all except for employees of Consult Hyperion, blogmeister Jane and members of my immediate family. There are no cash alternatives. Oh, and no-one can win more than one of these blog competitions per year.

These opinions are my own (I think) and presented solely in my capacity as an interested member of the general public [posted with ecto]

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From Digital Money Blog - digitaldebateblogs.typepad.com