Borrowers should be wary of banks seeking to recover the higher cost of credit due to the global credit crunch over coming months. Total personal lending and credit card debt rose by 13.2 per cent over the past year to $151 billion. Some credit card and fixed loan rates have already headed north and the big banks issued warnings over the closing months of 2007 that there would be more to come. Markets are also tipping that there is a strong possibility of an increase in the official cash rate when the Reserve banks meets again at the beginning of February. With Bendigo Bank’s variable home loan rate already at 8.60 per cent compared with a standard rate of 8.57 per cent it will pay for consumers to shop around for the best rates.

By News.com.au

Major Banks are looking to generate more consumer interest for the EFTPOS system by creating a new commmercial entity to help promote wider use of the EFTPOS system.

With the increased competition from credit card companies like Mastercard and Visa along with their prepaid debit cards major Banks are looking to for new innovative ways to generate awareness. EFTPOS systems have their definite advantages, their low fraud rate, low implementation costs. Currently Merchants have to change to their systems work with the new smartcards and have been recently been given an extension to have these new protocols in place.

In Australia alone, consumers already generate around 110 million purchases worth $7.5 billion every month making Eftpos is the most widely used system of its type.

Visa has extended the period allowed for merchants to upgrade their smartcard payments technology to 30 September 2009. The upgrades will reduce the risk of fraud and some retailers who comply could receive discounts of up to 25 per cent on their interchange fees. The Australian Merchant Payments Forum chairman, Russell Zimmerman, has said that the extension was appreciated as the extra time would help offset set-up costs which can be expensive, particularly for merchants that owned their own terminals.

By InfoChoice.com.au

Not sure about you out there but I’ve started to see a new trend in the types of gifts i received for Christmas and my Birthday. Instead of boxers and socks I recieved Giftcards.
I had received 2 JB HIFI giftcards, Bunnings, Itunes GiftCards.

I’m one of those people that are notoriously difficult to buy for and I think Giftcards fills that niche and based on the latest figures from the retail store Myer, I’m not the only one that’s looking at giftcards as gifts.

Myer has reported an increase in gift cards sales which will help generate generate sales throughout the January stock take sales period. With Gift cards becoming more convenient and accessible The Australian Retailers Association is predicting that consumers will spend 7 per cent more in the post-Christmas sales period this year than they did last year.

For those that are unsure about Giftcards, There’s a good chance that a $50 Giftcard from JB HIFI or Itunes would put a smile on anyones face, even for those who are difficult to buy for.