According to Morgan Stanley Cashback credit cards are the number one reward option selected by customers.
Recently produced figures indicate 70% prefer cashback, 21% prefer retail discounts and 5% prefer travel perks and incentives.
Morgan Stanley say in their report:
“Loyalty and reward schemes are becoming increasingly important for customers and represent the most important consideration for 29% of cardholders who have recently switched or are planning to do so. This means that reward programmes offering bonuses such as cashback are not far behind interest rates (31%) as the primary concern for consumers.”
Patrick Muir, marketing director of Morgan Stanley consumer banking, said:
“With the majority of people paying off their credit cards in full every month, using a credit card with a reward scheme really makes sense,” he commented.
“With focus shifting away from short-term offers, the popularity of reward schemes is no surprise.”
(Via the Thrifty Scot)
Visa recently announced that it’s operations outside Europe would be consolidated into a global corporation.
A large proportion of it’s stock is to be offered to the general public.
Visa’s current status is as a private membership association owned by approximately 20,000 financial institutions globally.
The decision by Visa comes on the heels of a move by MasterCard to go public last May. Since MasterCard’s initial public offering, the company’s stock price has surged 84% in four and a half months.
The stock offer could come in 12 to 18 months with “The first phase of Visa’s restructuring will involve a series of mergers involving Visa USA, Visa Canada, and Visa International, resulting in a corporation owned by the members, while Visa Europe will remain a membership association owned and governed by its European member banks and become a licensee of Visa Inc.”
There seems to be growing evidence of the UK slipping even further into personal debt hell.
Only recently a warning issued by a charity indicated that many in their 50’s have the most acute credit card problems. That was quite a surprise to me as it might be to others. I guess the cliché of the spend thrift parent from the post war generation has been well and truly put to bed.
According to the study:
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Advantages of credit cards
• Credit cards can work out cheaper than a short term personal loan.
• Credit cards can offer a high degree of loan flexibility i.e you can pay the minimum amount or the whole debt.
• No redemption penalties for early repayment of loan.
• Many credit cards offer an interest free period.
• Credit cards offer online purchasing power.
• The key benefit to credit cards is really the added protection you enjoy when making purchases.
• Many credit cards offer enticing additional benefits such as insurance cover on purchases, cash back, air miles and discounts on holidays.
Disadvantages of credit cards
• Cash withdrawals via ATM can be very expensive.
• Credit cards offer readily available credit which can entice you into purchases you really can’t afford.
• Credit cards do have weaknesses in terms of potential fraud, particularly when used online.
If you have a bad or adverse credit history then this card might be worth a try. However, you really are going to be paying through the nose with an APR of 39.9%.
Typical APR
Typical 39.9% APR variable.
APRs
29.9% to 49.9% APR variable for Classic on purchases.
Credit limits
Initial credit limits range from £250 to £2,000.
Interest rates
Typical interest rate 2.84% (monthly) 39.94% (annually) for purchases and 3.22% (monthly) 46.19% (annually) for cash and cheques.
Interest calculation
Interest is generally charged from the date of all transactions or other amounts charged to your account, until repayment in full. Interest is charged on the daily outstanding balance on your account and debited to your account at the end of each statement period. At statement date, we will add the interest we charge to the outstanding balance on your account. This means that you will generally pay interest on interest.
Interest free period
Up to 56 days interest free on purchase transactions only, where you have paid off two or more consecutive current statement balances in full and on time.
Minimum monthly repayments
Gold 3% of your balance or £10 whichever is the greater.
Classic 5% of your balance or £5 whichever is the greater.
Frequency and method
Choose to make more than one payment a month by Direct Debit, by cash or cheque over the counter at a bank or post office, by Debit Card over the phone or post. The reverse of your statement shows full details.
Allocation of payments
Payments you make will be applied in the following order:
Interest, Fees, Default charges;
Balance transfers and Promotional rates;
Purchase transactions;
Cash/Cheque transactions.
Annual fee
There is no annual fee.
Charges
Cash/Cheque advance fee of 2.5% or £2.50, whichever is the greater. Foreign transaction fee of 2.75% of the amount of any non-sterling transaction made abroad.
Default charges
Late payment and over limit fees are £12.
Returned payment fee of £12 if a Direct Debit or cheque is not honoured.
