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Thursday, January 7, 2010

Amex launches new cashback credit card

by David Masters

American Express (Amex) has launched a new credit card that rewards spending with shopping vouchers.

The Amex Express Rewards Credit Card generates points for the card holder whenever they use the card to pay for goods or services.

Accumulated points can be used to pay for items at a wide range of high-street and internet shops, including HMV, Amazon, Comet, and Homebase.

Consumers using the card can earn up to three points for every pound spent, depending on where they shop.

Money spent in major supermarkets earns three points per pound, in department stores two points per pound, and in most other shops, one point per pound.

Each point is worth £0.005 - a measly half a penny.

The minimum redemption limit on the card is 5,000 points, equivalent to a £25 gift voucher.

Amex called the reward scheme “generous”, and said it launched the Express Rewards card to provide better rewards for day-to-day spending.

“With the appetite for vouchers set to increase next year, it makes sense to be providing a reward card that gives shoppers gift cards,” said Katrina Cliffe, Amex head of consumer cards.


Source:.financemarkets.co.uk

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Bank of America Leads in Default Rate Rise

CreditCards_E_20090616090821.jpg

Analysts are picking through fresh credit card data and in search of reasons for optimism buried in otherwise ugly data. There aren’t many.

Dow Jones Newswires’ Ed Welsch looked closely at a research note out from Bernstein Research analyst John McDonald. He writes:

Credit card default rates continued to rise in May, reaching 10.1%, a 0.83 percentage point rise and up 4.58 percentage points y/y. BofA (BAC) saw the largest increase among major issuers, rising two percentage points from April. The average delinquency levels fell slightly to 5.83%, but this isn’t always a positive, Bernstein Research says, as it could just be a reduction in “sloppy payers,” reducing late fee revenue while charge-offs continue to rise. Given continued deterioration in unemployment, and monthly personal bankruptcies remaining at the 120,000+ level set in March, Bernstein says higher losses are in the pipeline for card issuers. Firm forecasts a peak of 11.25% in mid-2010.

At first glance, there did seem to be some bright spots in the data — for instance those delinquency trends to the downside. But Robert W. Baird & Co. analysts weren’t overly excited, writing that they “attribute the improvement to seasonality as consumers’ use of tax refunds to pay down revolving debt. More consistent with the challenging economic environment and employment trends, we expect delinquencies to demonstrate incremental degradation going forward.”


blogs.wsj.com

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Credit Cards and You: Credit Card Comparison Tables

Source: http://www.fcac-acfc.gc.ca

Comparison tables Format Updated
Standard Credit Cards
(low-rate and regular-rate)
PDF Version 546 kB July 2008
Gold Credit Cards
(low-rate and regular-rate)
PDF Version510 kB July 2008
Platinum Credit Cards
(low-rate and regular-rate)
PDF Version497 kB July 2008
U.S. Dollar Credit Cards
PDF Version403 kB July 2008
Student Credit Cards
(low-rate and regular-rate)
PDF Version424 kB July 2008
Secured Credit Cards PDF Version441 kB July 2008
Retail Credit Cards PDF Version350 kB July 2008
Charge Cards PDF Version355 kB July 2008
Credit Balance Insurance PDF Version169 kB July 2008