Financial Schools Reviews

Today the Federal Reserve Board announced final rules that will limit debit card swipe fees, as mandated by the “Durbin Amendment” under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. It backed away from a proposal to cap debit interchange fees at 12 cents per transaction, and instead the Board voted on a final proposal that includes a cap of 21 cents per transaction, plus 5 basis points per transaction for fraud prevention costs. Financial institutions with $10 billion or less in assets, governmental benefit cards, and certain prepaid cards are exempt. The

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The flat reading in consumer spending came after 10 straight months of gains, the U.S. Commerce Department said, and followed a downwardly revised 0.3 percent gain in April.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of U.S. economic activity, to gain only 0.1 percent last month after a previously reported 0.4 percent rise in April.

When adjusted for inflation, spending fell 0.1 percent in May, declining for a second straight month.

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Mark sent me an email regarding my recent article, Some Thoughts on the Long Term, in which he asked the following question:

I still don’t see any compelling reason to worry about my future more than about five years down the road. I can think about where I’d like to be in ten years, but life shifts so rapidly that no matter what I think of it won’t happen. Why should I even think for a second about anything beyond five years or so?

It’s a good question and Mark does make a good point. I think there are a few pieces, though, that he’s missing.

Unless you unexpectedly die at an unnaturally young age, you will grow old. It doesn’t matter where your path leads you. Eventually,

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Anytime two companies merge/buy each other, the spinsters go into overdrive blathering about how synergies will produce everything from better profits to better products to better customer service. Despite the fact that far too many mergers and acquisitions simply don’t (read Billion Dollar Lessons: What You Can Learn from the Most Inexcusable Business Failures of the Last 25 Years), companies seem intent on continuing the practice.

That brings us to the recent $9 billion purchase of online bank ING by traditional bank Capital One. From my perspective (business owner, district manager, MBA, customer) these are two incompatible business models. W

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Credit cards provide the cheapest means of currency conversion. Hold on, before you balk at this statement and argue that someone working for a credit-oriented blog would of course make such a claim, let me tell you something: I have the facts to back it up. In fact, credit cards have the potential to save international travelers as much as 15% on currency exchange, according to a recent Currency Exchange Study by Card Hub.

Card Hub – using both online fact finding and anonymous phone calls – was able to determine the U.S. dol

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