Hackers are like any other type of thief. They look for easy targets and take advantage of them. Are you an easy target in the eyes of identity thieves?
Let’s assume that you’ve taken basic prevention steps, like using anti-virus software and securing your router to prevent hackers from getting directly into your system. Have
Banking
Do as I say, not as I do. Do you ever fall into that trap? New research from Debt.com suggests that you might have that attitude when it comes to budgets.
Debt.com recently surveyed the budgeting habits and attitudes of Americans and found a wide discrepancy in following through on budgeting beliefs. A huge majority
Your checking account is a tempting target for thieves. You must stay alert for the many varieties of checking account scams – but first, you must be able to recognize a scam when you see one. Have you ever been targeted by any of the scams below?
Free Prizes – This scam usually starts with
By Amy Beardsley
You are given the option of “debit or credit” when making purchases with your debit card. As it turns out, there’s a lot more to consider before swiping your debit card to pay for that next purchase. Although debit cards may look like credit cards, they don’t function like credit cards. When
Your Christmas gift from the Federal Reserve is here. Surprise! It’s another 0.25% hike in the Federal Funds rate. Sure, you’ve already gotten this same gift three other times in 2018, and nine times since late 2015 – but what else would you expect to receive from the Fed?
Interest rate hikes from the Fed
You’re never too old to learn new things – including better money management practices. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) agrees.
To address financial literacy concerns, the FDIC created the Money Smart teaching program in 2001 to help educators and financial institutions increase consumer understanding of basic financial systems work and how to use them
Most consumers know that credit cards can come with fees other than interest charges applied to balances. Annual fees, late payment fees, balance transfer fees, cash advance fees, foreign transaction fees … the list goes on.
Did you know that debit cards could have fees as well? If not, don’t feel bad. In a recent
In September 2017, America learned about the massive data breach at the credit reporting agency Equifax that affected approximately 148 million consumers – one of the largest breaches ever. Identity thieves suddenly acquired a new batch of Social Security numbers, names, addresses, phone numbers, and other personal information.
Consumers were advised to take steps immediately
By Sandra Parsons
While Cardi B is topping the charts, “Card Cracking” is ruining some music fans’ lives. Rapper Young Ash and five others were recently indicted for running a card cracking ring that recruited accomplices through her Snapchat channel. Learn how card cracking works and how you can avoid falling victim to
Prefer using debit cards over credit cards, but miss earning rewards? Some debit cards offer cash-back rewards – either as a straight points-based redemption program or as a perks-based program directed at purchases with specific merchants. You may have debit card cash-back benefits through a perks-based program and not even realize it.
Cardlytics is
You may manage your money well, but do you also manage the bank that holds it for you? If not, you may be missing out on useful services and products, or paying more than necessary to receive them. Consider these tips that can help you to use your bank more wisely.
1. Shop Around –
It seems like every time you turn around, there’s news of a new data breach – and the breaches continue to get larger with time. When breaches reach the level of affecting millions and even billions of accounts, it’s only a matter of time before your accounts are affected. How can you keep your accounts
With more and more information stored online, more bad guys are just a password away from our personal data. As hackers have stolen financial information from large corporations like Equifax, Yahoo and even the Internal Revenue Service, identity theft is on the rise.
“Identity theft can trash your credit score because there’s the risk that
Like many people, do you need a credit card but struggle with the temptation to overspend? The convenience of being able to spend money that you don’t currently have is just too great.
Debit cards are a suitable alternative, but they have significant drawbacks – you can’t handle emergency expenses that go beyond the funds
As we age, our cognitive skills begin to decline and our ability to take proper care of our finances begins to fade. When you hit that point in life, you run the risk of missing bill payments and losing track of other important account information. What do you do when that time approaches?
Start by
Life can get hectic fast and people can easily allow certain tasks to fall through the cracks. Unfortunately, sometimes we never remember to complete those tasks — or even what those tasks were — and it can end up costing you your hard-earned money.
For example, you may forget to leave a forwarding address with
How do you know that your bank is the best one for you? You can consult all the advertising flyers and conventional information available at bank branches — or you can do some homework on the fundamentals of your bank with help from the online Bank Data Guide from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
College is not only supposed to give you the skills you need in a particular field of study, but also the general life skills that you need to survive and thrive. Without good habits, your collegiate financial education can come via the school of hard knocks – through incurring fees and interest charges.
According to
MoneyTips If you want to send money directly to your friends online, there are a number of apps that allow you to do so, including Venmo. Venmo is one of the leading person-to-person (P2P) financial apps, successful to the extent that it is sometimes used as a verb (“Just Venmo me the money”). That may
Wealthy people achieve their wealth in many different ways, but typically, those who maintain it stay wealthy for a reason: they do not spend any more than they have to on any item. That principle applies just as much to buying a smartphone or vacuum cleaner as it does to buying a multi-million dollar conglomerate.
April is National Financial Literacy Month. Why do we dedicate this calendar page to highlighting financial skills and education? The tax deadline? Sound financial decisions are important all year long, but most Americans never learned how to manage money or save for goals, so financial security is a bigger challenge than it needs to be.
Which Is True? The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is an independent consumer and financial watchdog agency that offers advice to consumers and levies fines against financial institutions engaged in questionable practices.
The CFPB is an unchecked, poorly controlled agency that restricts the opportunity of financial institutions to operate within a free market and applies
Many people might believe that to get a good credit score, they need a checking account. For households conducting most of their financial transactions with money orders and prepaid cards, it might seem essential. But financial expert Jeff Richardson says that having a checking account isn’t necessary.
Talking about the myth, Richardson said, “It’s probably
Imagine that you visit an ATM to withdraw cash and instead of completing your transaction through scanning a card and entering a PIN, you simply tap the screen and scan a code to receive your cash. You don’t have to imagine it; in some locations, you can experience it.
Cardless ATM transactions through mobile apps
College costs are spiraling to the point where a four-year major college education is approaching or exceeding the cost of your house. Like many Americans, you may not be able to foot the entire cost of a college education, but a prudent savings plan can reduce the amount of aid your child will have to
You are struggling just to pay your monthly bills, not to mention dealing with the occasional car breakdown, home maintenance item, or unexpected medical bill. You have had to resort to high-interest short-term payday loans to fill the gap, which puts you even further in debt. How can you even think about saving money in
You probably earn periodic bonuses with purchases on your cash-back credit card. How about a cash bonus on your savings account that doesn’t require any purchase at all? In these days of minuscule interest rates on savings accounts — the national average is around 0.15% — that is an offer that catches people’s attention.
Capital
Regardless of the amount of money you have, it’s important to keep a portion of it in liquid assets that are readily accessible to pay bills and other debts. The simplest and most common way to maintain liquidity is through cash kept in a savings or checking account through a bank or credit union. However,
As a company owner, CFO or Controller, one of your most important tasks is to select the right business bank. It is easy to think that all banks are the same, but there are important differences in services, fees and culture. So it’s worth taking some of your valuable time to insure that the bank
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is a U.S. Government regulatory agency that has three primary purposes:
Insure bank deposits of member banks;
Assist with banking regulations;
Deal with failing banks.
Let’s look at each of these jobs in a little more detail.
Deposit Insurance
The FDIC does insure bank deposits in