In the past, for many people when it came to prepaid cards it was for using sparingly or during times that they didn’t want to use their credit cards to make purchases (ie: online). Now that the times have changed, prepaid cards are finding themselves in the pocketbooks of millions of Americans. For that reason, it now looks like everyone can look forward to seeing more major credit card issuers enter into the reloadable prepaid cards space. One of the most recent issuers to do so was Capital One in hopes to benefit from the millions of consumers navigating away from credit cards to get a better handle on debt.

When looking at prepaid cards there are many options that are available and each is geared to a different audience. S

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Sound familiar? I was recently asked this question by one of my clients and figured the question warranted discussion.

The average American has anywhere from 5-10 credit cards, though with the recent financial crisis, that number has probably gone down. Do American’s need that many? Maybe, maybe not. I think the number of cards themselves is less important than the amount of debt you can comfortably pay off each month.

As we’ve discussed before, your credit score is determined by several factors, one of which is the debt-to-credit-limit ratio on all of your cards. Ideally, you want to keep what you owe on each card between 25-45% of what your actual credit limit is.

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Do you think that overlimit and bank fees are unfair, given the difference between how little the banks are inconvenienced and how much consumers are charged?  Jackie Romas did, and now she’s lost her job because of it.

The Huffington Post reports that Jackie was fired by Bank of America for helping customers who had incurred these fees and hit hard times.  Instead of acting as a debt collector, like B of A wanted her to, Jackie used the loopholes in the bank’s contracts to help people get into better programs and avoid hefty fines.

“So I stopped denying people [the ability to modify their accounts],” said Ramos. “I helped

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Rewards credit cards come in several varieties, in addition to cash back. They are generally offered only to individuals whose credit is rated “excellent” or “very good.”

Some have no annual fee, while others, with more generous rewards, carry an annual fee of up to $450.

The rewards card you choose should reflect your lifestyle and the way you use your credit card.

Two of the most popular are “miles” and “points.”

Miles, of course, refers to airline miles. Some cards are specific to one airline and some are universal. Some give miles for all purchases, and some only for travel-related purchases. Read full article…

When it comes to credit card mailings are you only receiving offers from banks that you currently do business with? If so, then welcome to the next generation of marketing from issuers as an article entitled “Credit Card Companies to Get Up, Close, and Personal”, details how it could stay this way for a while as issuers are putting their marketing dollars into advertising to their current customers.

Focusing on current customers is nothing new for credit card issuers, just the growing focus of this technique. Where as in past you had probably gotten mail from financial institution that you have heard of (and had not heard of for the matter), now you may only get some mail from banks that you may already have a loan or banking account with. One good example of this is Chase’s newest business charge card offers. For both the “Ink” and the “Ink Capital” charge cards, the “Exclusive Benefits” rewards are focused on those that are current business checking account holders.

Why not target consumers that you already know personally? On many accounts this way of marketing in less expensive for the companies themselves and even more targeted than that of mailing, as they already know your tendencies when it comes to your finances. In addition if you look at past results of other companies that currently use the same model (say your insurance company), you will see that type of marketing has shown very good results.