Rules Governing Lenders

There are various laws introduced to have a check on the various Banks and Lending institutions such that there is a limit to the lenders rate and principle amount being lent.

According to the website enotes.com, the law governing the financial institution is a fusion of federal laws and laws governing the respective states. Article 3 of the Uniform Commercial Code involves negotiable instruments act, Article 4 of Uniform Commercial Code governs bank deposit and collections. Some of the laws governing the lenders and financial institutions are: a. National Banking System. b. Federal Reserve Act of 1913. c. Bank holding company act of 1956. International act of 1978, require foreign banks to fit within the federal regulatory and interest Rate Control Act of 1978, created Federal Financial institutions Examination Council d. Depositors institutions deregulation and monetary control act, this was implemented to remove the ceiling on interest rate e. Crime Control Act of 1990- this provided regulators to combat frauds. F. Housing and community development act of 1992-to combat money laundering g. Reigie-Neal interstate Banking and Branding efficiency Act of 1994, permitted bank holding companies that were adequately capitalized and managed to acquire bank in any state. H. Gramm-Leach Biley Act-restriction of disclosure of non-profitable customer information by financial institutions.

Article 9, which govern the Secured Transaction. Accordingly banks demand for a property or house to be used as security while advancing loans to a borrower. In the light wherein the borrower is not able to pay the loan amount the interest from the property is used by the bank to cover the loan amount, even if the borrower goes into bankruptcy the Bank uses the property to settle the loan amount.

Truth in lending: Part of the Consumer Credit Protection Act requires lenders to disclose the various conditions involved while advancing loans The various areas where the lenders must disclose are the following a. Total amount of principle being lent b. Payment due date’s c. Terms of loans d. Details of valuables used as security. e. Finance charges involved. f. Processing fees. g. Payment penalties. The various private institutions and lenders are supposed to abide by the various disclosure agreements such that the borrowers rights are protected.

These various sets of Acts and rules are actually a merger of both the federal laws and the various state laws. The state tries to implement and pass acts, which can protect the various local financial institutions and lending Banks.

The Lowdown on Contractors' Business Credit Cards

All the major business credit card issuers have set their eyes on the growing small business credit card market and are trying really hard to get a bigger slice of the pie. They have also realized there is a strong segment of the small business credit card market that could equally benefit from the features of small business credit cards: the group of small contractors and construction companies. The business credit cards designed for contractors have the objective of inducing them to do away with invoice-based payments by check and to rather shift to more frequent use of their business credit cards. An industry study has shown that less than 5 percent of all spending in 2006 was done by charging the expense to the business credit cards of business owners. The business credit card issuers would prefer small business owners to think of using their business credit cards for everyday business-related expenses and not just for travel and entertainment. MasterCard launched its industry-specific business credit card designed for construction companies last year. This card also allows longer payment cycles than usual. A similar program for business credit card holders is offered under Chase Contractor Visa Business credit card program. These programs give access to promotional financing and enjoy a strong rewards package. There is no pre-determined limit on spending. This enables contractors to pay bigger-ticket business expenses by using their business credit cards instead of writing checks. Purchases of construction materials amounting to at least $1,000 will be subject to a longer 60-day payment term; purchases below $1,000 will not qualify for this promotional financing benefit. There are limitations that you should bear in mind, especially if you are angling for the rewards points and discounts. The bonus points are earned only on net purchases that are made with contractors that have classified their merchant locations to the company as contracted building services, building and construction materials, and landscaping services. There is a limit to the bonus points that can be earned in the categories mentioned above: 20,000 points per month. That is equivalent to $20,000 worth of purchases on your business credit card. However, there is no maximum number of base points that can be accumulated. You will need to distinguish between the two point types. The business credit card holder should examine the fine print closely to inform him- or herself with the particular services, materials and products that will qualify for rewards points if paid with their business credit cards. The qualified merchants may not be quite as confined as those of the usual branded business credit cards, but still there are limitations. Your business credit card has no pre-determined limit on spending. But that does not mean you can spend indiscriminately. If a particular purchase amount will result in your business credit card account going over your credit limit, only the portion that falls below the limit will qualify for the rewards points. Beyond that, every charge that causes a breach in your credit limit will be subject to evaluation before it is authorized; the evaluation will take into account both your spending pattern and payment history.

Types of Mortgage Refinance Loans

Technically, you can take out any kind of loan and use your loan proceeds to pay off your mortgage. Viewed this way, any type of loan can be a mortgage refinance loan. However, some have restrictions (i.e. some loans do not offer a big enough credit for paying off a mortgage) so they don’t make good refinance loans. This article is about the loans you can use for refinancing your mortgage. Since these are loans that banks have specifically designed for paying off mortgages, they are also known as the common types of mortgage refinance loans that are available in the market. According to Variability of Interest Rate Fixed-rate mortgage refinance loan: This type of home refinance loan is one where the interest rate is locked-in to a fixed amount for the whole duration of the loan. Simply put, the home refinance loan will be kept at a constant interest rate for the whole life of the balance. Variable-rate mortgage refinance loan: This type of home refinance loan is one where the interest rate varies with a certain, predetermined index. The interest rate, in this case can be equivalent to the index or greater than the index by a fixed margin. In this type of mortgage refinance loan, there is usually an introductory rate period where the interest rate is fixed for a few years (3 and 5 years are common) at a very low rate. After this introductory period has passed, the rate becomes a true variable rate – subject to the whims of the market. However, there’s usually a cap or interest rate ceiling to protect the consumers from excessive index rate increases. According to Payment Terms Interest-only mortgage refinance loan: This type of mortgage refinance is one where you will be asked to pay only the interest for a certain period of time. After the set interest-only payment period has passed, you will have to start making payments towards the principal. Balloon-type mortgage refinance loan: This type of refinance loan is one with an initially low, fixed interest rate (the actual period varies from lender to lender but this period doesn’t usually exceed 10 years). After the period for the low interest has passed, however, full payment is required on loan balance. Fully-amortizing mortgage refinance loan: This type of refinancing loan is one where monthly payments are a combination of interest charges and payments towards the balance. This type of loan is ideal for people who wish to add to their equity as well as reduce the balance with every payment. Home equity mortgage refinance loan: This type of loan is one where you actually apply for a loan using the equity you have stored in your home as your security for the loan. In this case, you give up your equity for money which you can get as outright cash or as a revolving credit line. Such a loan usually has a very good interest rate. However, this type of loan is ideal for mortgage refinancing ONLY if you have enough equity in your home to pay off your original mortgage lender. This can happen if your home has appreciated considerably. If you don’t have enough equity to pay off your original lender, you will only be taking on a second mortgage, not a refinancing loan.

Things you Should Know About Buying a House part 2 of 3

Houses do evolve with time (and sometimes very quickly). So your stepbrother has visited the house and told you it was fine and that you should save a couple of hundred bucks and not get it inspected, especially since it's only 3 years old? WRONG!!! Professional house inspectors are trained to look for details usually overlooked by regular home buyers such as insulation, traces of moisture, suspicious cracks, electricity and plumbing. They can also usually give you an idea of how much it would cost to bring any of these up to code. Finally, a good inspection done by a professional can usually pay for itself by using it as a bargaining tool. Shrink your mortgage. How many payments are there in a year? The answer is it depends. If you pay monthly, there are 12, if you pay bi-weekly, there are 26 (or the equivalent on 1 extra payment / year) which goes a long way to reduce your capital, especially in the first years, when most of your payment goes on paying interest. Do you have a little extra cash in the end of the month? Even ridiculously small amounts, applied monthly on your capital will save you thousands of dollars when done over 10, 15 or 25 years. Make sure when you choose your mortgage plan that you won't get penalized for doing so and that you tell your lender to apply the money to your capital as using it as a little deposit towards your next payment often even get you any interest, let alone help in any way. Owning real estate does have it's advantages. Choices: as the owner, you can decide whether to select a building that matches your current needs, has enough room for future expansion or maybe is large enough for you to lease parts of it. Equity: every month, your payments are applied to paying down your mortgage and building some equity which could be useful eventually to secure a loan for new equipment, to finance an acquisition or simply as an asset. Appreciation: not withstanding any unforeseen occurrences, your building should appreciate with time. This appreciation could, just as the above mentioned equity, be used to get better financing conditions. Power: as the landlord, you are the person in charge of deciding how to finance the building, picking the tenants, choosing the decorations, selecting entrepreneurs for the work to be done, improving the building. You even have control over your rent's rate. You make your money when you buy, not when you sell. One extremely important factor to consider before making your decision is that you make your money when you buy but realize it when you sell. Paying more than the fair market value, not taking into consideration your cash flow factors (mortgage, interest rates, insurance, taxes and repairs VS incoming rent, other income possibilities such as parking for example) or letting your feelings dictate a purchasing decision may negatively affect your exit strategy for year if you are not careful. Though appreciation is quite probable, I suggest you don't factor it in when crunching your numbers: if the deal is still a good deal without factoring in appreciation, you are likely to make a favorable ROI (return on investment) when you decide it's time to go for your exit strategy. If you absolutely need appreciation to justify your purchase, be extremely careful as no one really knows what will happen in the future and, in the present, you may be paying too much. Discuss the situation with a real estate agent know for his or her integrity such as Anne-Marie Perno with whom I often do business ( I will include a link to her website in the resources box below). Pay off your house in 12 year: doing this you could actually get it for free. If you understand but most important if you use my preceding advice about crunching the numbers before you buy and only buying a house that makes sense financially, then sell the house after 1 year in Canada, 2 in the US and repeat the process 5 more times, you could very well end up with a paid for mortgage and your dream house. This is something worth looking into, especially with the: Tax advantages of flipping houses. Since I'm not a CPA and that all situations are unique, I strongly suggest you meet with a competent financial advisor who will help you evaluate your particular situation. For now, keep in mind that in most situations, you will be able to use some of your expenses as depreciations to reduce your taxes or some of the rent as a personal income. What I do know for a fact though is that in most places, you can keep 100% of the profit (the difference between purchasing cost including cost of renovations and selling price) if you obey to some guidelines such as not doing it more often than once every 1 or 2 years depending on where you live and, in some places, reinvest your profits in purchasing a more expensive property.

Plan Your Trades and Better Trades

You have probably heard the saying "if you fail to plan, you plan to fail." This couldn't be more true in the world of trading. None of us begin to trade with the intention of failing but that is just what we are doing if we blindly look for trades to put our money into without a proper plan of attack. I recommend taking some quiet time when the markets are closed to create your plan. "What quiet time," do you ask? Believe me, with a two month old, I understand better than ever how difficult it can be to catch those few moments of down time in our lives. But it really is imperative to our success as traders that we do this. With a little focus and dedicated time, we can review our current trades, plan our future trades, and maintain a diversified account. Let me share with you what I do during my planning sessions. The first step is to find a time that you can devote to planning each day. It doesn't have to be a huge amount of time, but I would advise you to start with a 30 minute to an hour block of time. I know we all get busy and it is easy to skip a planning session here or there. But if you are serious about making money in the market, this is a step that cannot be skipped. Block out some time to plan, and don't let the minor distractions in your life get in the way. I begin each planning session by reviewing the market calendars. This is easily done in the Dedicated Trader by going to the calendaring section. I look at the economic events coming up for the next day and the rest of the week. If there are any major economic events that may affect the markets, I want to know so I can prepare by tightening my stops. And there are some events, such as the FOMC minutes, that can create great trading opportunities. I also check the earnings calendar to determine which companies and sectors may be announcing earnings that week. You do not want to get caught off guard by a company you are trading announcing earnings without you knowing about it. After reviewing the calendars, I move into charting. I begin with a chart of the S&P 500 to see what condition the overall market is in. Is it trending up? Trending down? Moving sideways? This helps me set my trades up as I like about seventy five percent of my trades to be in the direction of the markets. If the market trend is bullish I want most of my trades to be bullish, and I let the bullish market pull my trades along to give me a greater success rate. I also diversify by finding stocks that are bucking the overall market trend. For instance, in bullish markets I try to find the stocks and sectors that are the most bearish and I put about twenty five percent of my trades in those plays. When the market reverses, (or has some bigger retracement days within the uptrend) these bearish plays become very big winners for me. This is an easy way to make money in both directions. Once I have a feel for the markets, I move into individual stocks. I run through my Ultimate Scans to find specific stocks and sectors that are forming strong technical patterns and will thus make good trades. I already mentioned diversifying the type of plays you have going and I also make sure I am diversified among the best sectors. If you spread your money out, you minimize the risk and can capture the gains in more than one stock or sector. At this point, I start setting alerts and orders. On a day that I can look at my intraday charts from time to time, I prefer to use Real Time Markets to set an alert at the price at which I want to get in or out of a trade. When that alert is triggered, I will check the chart and manually execute the trade. Things have changed for me now as my new little boy has made it more difficult for me to check my charts during the day. So I am using contingency orders more and more. A contingency order allows you to set a stock price at which you want to buy or sell an option. When the stock hits that price, your option order becomes a live market order and your trade is executed. This is a great way to go because it allows those of us with limited time during the day to trade just as successfully as those in a position to use intraday charts. Do not forget to manage the trades you are already in. I spend a few minutes checking the charts of my current trades and adjusting my stops accordingly. If you spend some time developing a trading plan for the next trading day, you will find that your trading goes much more smoothly and more profitably. Review the market calendars and the bigger indexes as background before you start finding your trades. Then with that knowledge, you will be better prepared to develop a solid, diversified trading account that allows you to capture the moves of some of the best stocks and sectors for that time. Now that I am back after taking some time off to have a baby, you can learn more about my trading plan and my system of trading by joining me at a Technically Speaking two day workshop. Hope to see you soon! Markay with Better Trades

Increase Your Trading Profits

Do You Want Increased Profits? Then Go After Decreased Losses! Hello, this is Bob Eldridge and I'd like to share with you a frequently overlooked source of profits from your trading. It's a simple concept yet so very important if you expect to be able to continue trading for any length of time! The concept is that of controlling both the number of losses you have and the dollar amount of those losses. I realize that statement sounds so obvious that you might be tempted to put this article away in favor of a night of bad television, but please stick with me here. I'll share some things with you that you probably don't expect to find here! To better visualize the concept I'm describing, picture a large washtub, the kind you probably remember from your childhood. Now imagine the difficulty of filling the washtub if it has several 'six-inch' holes in the bottom! No matter HOW MANY garden hoses you have filling it up, the water is running out faster than it's going in!! Now imagine plugging each of the holes, one at a time. Plug the first one and the difference is almost imperceptible. Plug the second hole and you begin to notice that there is less water splashing on the ground. Plug the third and you actually may see the water level in the tub begin to rise ... just slightly, perhaps, but rise nonetheless! Plug ALL the holes but one and the difference becomes measurable! Now that you're down to one hole, let's begin to repair it a piece at a time. First we cover HALF the hole ... while the tub still leaks, you can now tell there's more water going INTO the tub than running out the bottom. Patch half the remaining leak and you begin to adapt to the idea that it's OKAY if a little water comes out, just as long as there's more going in than coming out! Our trading accounts are something like that. Most new traders have HUGE trading account "holes" and the money is draining out faster than they can replace it! No matter how profitable they are on some of thier trades, they just seem to give it all BACK! If we're smart about our trading when we notice that, we'll STOP trading until we find the challenge and FIX it! What I'm describing are the DIRECT results of FOCUSING on the profits and almost totally forgetting about controlling the losses. There are many reasons for that but despite the reason, the results are the same. Left unchecked, such a situation will take us totally out of the trading business in a very short period of time! Does this describe you and your trading account? Would you like to know how to 'FIX' it? Let me share with you four RULES for trading which directly address losses and if followed, can 'plug' many of your profit leaks! RULE 1. Wait for the stock to CONFIRM the anticipated direction before entering the trade This rule can decrease the NUMBER of losses you experience. As simple as that sounds, it's one of the most often violated principles of good trading habits. So often is this rule broken that we are all familiar with cute little descriptions such as "catching a falling piano", or "reaching for a falling knife." What you use for this confirmation is your own affair; price rise or fall, momentum, frequency of trades or bid / ask "size" are just a few ways. Personally I combine them all (more or less), developing a 'feeling' about the confirmation, rather than a measurable quantity. However you choose to define confirmation, let experience be your best teacher here and do NOT enter the trade until you're convinced the stock is moving your direction! RULE 2. When you are filled on the entry, place a STOP loss to minimize your potential for loss. This rule controls the AMOUNT you can lose on any one trade. I like to use about 1/2 of the stock daily movement for my stop loss amount. For example, if a stock price moves on average, say $1 every trading day, then I'll back off 1/2 of that, or 50 cents and place my stop loss there, limiting the losses possibly incurred on that trade. Whatever you use, be FAITHFUL in adhering to the protection afforded by the stop. In other words, DON'T CHANGE IT. If you're stopped, you're stopped. He who trades and runs away lives to trade another day! So much for minimizing the NUMBER and dollar amount of losses. Equally important is allowing your profits to maximize AT THE SAME TIME! Here's how to do that. RULE 3. When you become profitable in a trade, replace the stop loss with a TRAILING stop, trailing by that amount of profit. This one is so important that I believe it should be the 22nd amendment to our Constitution! Say you're up 25 cents in a trade and you have your stop loss in at 50 cents below your entry (on long positions). Replace the stop loss with a 25 cent trailing stop. At THIS point, you WORST CASE outcome for the trade is BREAKEVEN (give or take a couple of pennies)!!! In my live trading lab on my website, I often refer to this as the MAGIC point in the trade. You have virtually NOTHING to lose and EVERYTHING to gain from that point on! Finally, for the 'do-it-yourself- traders ... RULE 4. Leave the trade alone from this point on! The market overall will do a much better job of managing the trade (with the above rules observed) than you or I EVER could! Once you've reached the MAGIC POINT in your trade, just go away and do something else. Your trade is on autopilot! I'm glad to have been able to spend the last few minutes sharing this with you. I hope it helps you to trade more profitably!! Bob with Better Trades

How To Protect Yourself From Identity Theft

Identity Theft is a real and growing problem. So what is identity theft exactly? Basically, identity theft is when someone uses your social security number, your bank credit card number, your driver's license number or any other form of identity without your knowledge or permission. Many people have fallen victim to identity theft through many different means. Some of these ways are easily preventable due to their common sense obvious nature. Other ways identities are stolen are more dubious and discreet. So, the question becomes, how can you protect yourself from someone stealing your identity? To protect yourself from identity theft, the first thing you should do when considering how to divulge information about your identity to someone you do not know or may not trust is to use your common sense. Never make one-sided assumptions or take things for granted where your identity is concerned. Credit card company statements and bank statements you receive in the mail contain your account information including your account number. Any of these items need to be shredded with an inexpensive shredder you can buy at any office supply store. Do not throw credit card statements, old credit cards or bank statements, etc. in the trash as that presents an easy way for someone going through the trash to steal your account information and use it as if they were you. Another thing you can do to protect yourself against credit card fraud and unauthorized credit card usage is to sign the back of your card as "Check ID". If a store clerk asks to see your card, he or she will check the signature on the back and compare it with some other form of ID you have. This safeguard will not work where a purchase can be automatically completed (like at a gas pump). When you are buying items at a store or withdrawing money from a bank or ATM machine using your ATM debit card always protect the visibility of your PIN number as you punch it in. Do not carry your social security card with your number on it in your wallet. Keep your social security card or anything with your social security number on it in a safe place where no one has access to it but you. If you must dispose of anything that has your social security number on it, do not forget to shred it. When online, do not open files sent to you by strangers or even files that are from someone you know but were not expecting to receive any from them. Do not click on hyperlinks or download programs from people you do not know either. Opening a computer file from an unknown source could expose your system to a computer virus, a Trojan or spyware. These types of programs could be ones that could log your keystroke information containing your credit card numbers, passwords or other sensitive information as you type it in. If you use Ebay or Paypal, read the company website policies concerning how they handle communication to you about your account information. Never trust an email you may receive out of nowhere from Ebay or Paypal asking you to "update your account information" as this is more than likely a ploy to steal that information and use it illegally. Use a firewall program and a router while you are online if you have high speed internet that leaves your computer connected to the internet 24/7. The router and the firewall program both make it much more difficult for a hacker to see your computer's actual IP address which means that you have a better chance of safely sending and receiving sensitive information over the internet. Windows XP operating system SP2 has a built in firewall which you should make sure is enabled in your settings. When you are shopping online, always use a secure browser and shop from a web site that offers secure transactions when shopping online. Most browsers in use today have this protection feature including the popular Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox browsers. Secure website shopping carts you visit will show up as "https://thestoresdomain.com" in the web browser address bar. Practice keeping your computer clean from spyware or Trojan programs that log keystroke information by using virus protection software and spyware monitoring and removal software. These programs should be updated regularly, and updates for you're operating system and other software programs should be installed regularly to protect against the compromise of your computer files and password information. Ideally, virus protection software should be set to update itself frequently. The Windows XP operating system will update itself automatically if you enable this feature, which you should. The consequences of identity theft once thieves have your information can be quite severe and range from going on a spending spree to taking out auto loans in your name. For these reasons and others, it is a good idea to monitor your credit report periodically. A credit report can be obtained from Trans Union Corp. New laws have made it easy for you to get at least one free credit report that you can use to see if accounts have been opened in your name. You may copy this article and place it on your own website, as long as you do not change it and include this resource box including the live link to the Credit Repair Advice site.

How to Get Profit from Forex

Forex trading, as one of the important markets worldwide, is a very profitable opportunity and it can bring enormous earnings to traders. Forex trading can also be very risky, especially to the new inexperienced traders. That is why every trader must trade smart and improve his/her own trading tactic that works and follow it consistently. A very good way to understand forex trading better is to start trading with demo accounts. These demo accounts symbolize simulation of actual trading where you trade with “virtual” money instead of real money. Demo accounts are totally risk free and brilliant means to see if you are capable of making cash with forex, or not. They are also very good for practicing forex trading and sharpening your abilities as a forex trader. Once you think you are prepared, choose forex broker and start actual trading. Be also cautious with broker selection. Brokers should be synchronized by globally known institution and must be able to give registration or license number. Also avoid trading with brokers that offer higher leverage than 300:1. Most brokers should offer help and instructions to their traders. Forex brokers must also offer ability to open demo accounts and trade with virtual money. Keep in mind that trading with virtual money can be different from trading with real money and some traders that trade successfully with demo accounts don’t experience same success with real accounts. One of the reasons why this occurs lies in human psychology and emotions. When you trade with virtual money, you can’t really lose anything while in real accounts you can and this fear of loss emotion usually leads to bad decisions. Emotions in forex are your enemy and you have to always stay cool. Also trade with money you can afford to lose so you won’t have to knock your head against the wall if some trades go wrong. Remember, forex is not a way to get out of a debt and stay out of it if you are in desperate need for money. Forex trading requires endurance and lack of emotions. In time, when you become skilled trader, you will know more what you can and what you can’t do and how much money you can earn.

What Do Lenders Gain?

With the rising of the consumers spending power and with more debts being taken to repay their old one….the question should be what does the lender not gain? But the fact is that everything is not easy for the lender. With the increase in the acts and regulation passed to hold the lender community in check and with a watch over the ceiling of the interest rates, the lenders are in more trouble than we know. The time consumed in processing the debt and the cost involved in recovering the same is a matter to consider. Of the two types of lenders i.e. the banking community and the private lenders. It is the private lender who is at more risk; this is because most of the private lenders offer credit without actually looking into the credit worthiness of an individual. But to safeguard themselves against such circumstances the lenders charge high rate of interest and ask for security in the form of property or house. The lenders in order to safeguard themselves against various vagaries have formed communities and the interest fixed by them is uniform among all, though there might be some exception. Be it educational loan, car loan or house loan, it is the lender who is at risk. The highest amount of debt taken is for home loan category. It is found that the lenders gain with refinancing. Refinancing is nothing but paying off existing debts and taking a new one. Refinancing is on the increase because of lower interest rates, the lenders gain by the amount of refinancing loans that are applied. It is to safeguard against the various risk that the lenders drawn an agreement between the borrower and themselves. Another method that the lenders have adopted in order to increase the speed of processing the loan and to alert them on any discrepancies is the LEAP system, LEAP is Lenders Easy Access Program where all the details of a borrower are keyed and the processing of the borrowers application is done at a faster pace allowing the borrowers to get the amount at a quicker period of time and helps the lender by reducing the time and the cost involved in processing of documents. Therefore the risk faced by a lender while lending money, are many. The only way to safeguard them is to abide by the rules set forth by the banking community and adopt honest and transparent method of lending.

Internet Banking could help with your tax retuns

One of the most useful things about Internet banking is that once you have your account information on your computer, you can export it into financial programs such as Microsoft Money and Quicken, to better manage your various household accounts. This can be particularly useful at tax time, if you export your account details into a tax calculator program such as TurboTax. However, getting the software and your Internet banking to talk to each other can sometimes be easier said than done. While many banks (especially Internet-only banks) are good about this and offer an easy download link to save your online statements onto your computer, others offer only a very basic Internet banking service. If your bank doesn’t produce export files, you may have luck with asking your software to access your Internet banking account directly, giving it your username and password (it goes without saying that you shouldn’t give these details to any software you don’t completely trust). If that still doesn’t work, then don’t worry. Search the web for the name of your bank followed by ‘export software’, and you will often find that someone has produced a free script that you can use to save the information from your bank’s website. These scripts generally work by first asking you to save pages from your Internet banking using your web browser’s Save button or menu option, and then taking the files produced and converting them into a format that your financial software can understand. If all else fails, call up your bank and ask them to help you. If they refuse, and it is really important to you, you might consider opening an account at an Internet bank, where they will be much more understanding towards these kinds of requests. You might also want to complain to the company that makes the financial software, as they may be able to persuade (or even help) the bank to do something about the problem.

How to spot clear warning signals that your heading for financial disaster

Most people don't spot the signs that might help them avoid going bankrupt or losing the house. Going bust on a personal level does not happen overnight it takes and time and bad management in the majority of cases. Over time the walls start closing in and before you know it you've lost the house, the car or the lot. The best plan of attack is to avoid this situation at all cost! You need some foresight when making personal finance decisions, for example the 12 / 24 month interest free deal look great on the surface but the real cost is hidden over the term of the agreement and people get suckered into them time after time. You need to ask you what circumstances are going to change in the future that is going to allow you to pay that debt, why can't you pay it today? If you answer honestly then you most probably will walk away. They don't teach financial literacy in school sadly. The rule is simple, don't borrow to buy consumable items that lose value it's just not smart. Learn to go over the fine print with a microscope, you will need to do this to find the hidden land mines. think national sub prime disaster, I can't offer up a more valuable example. Consider this also, the cheaper the item the worse the finance package is going to be for the consumer. To make it viable for the seller they are going to try and make big margin on the finance. Small item price = high price for you. Credit cards are pretty much evil unless you know how to manage them, if you must have one set the limit low and pay it off inside the monthly interest free period to avoid the bank fees. A small financial hole is much easier to get out of than a big one, never take on extra debt unless it's a matter of necessity. A home loan is the top of the tree, car loans are second, think long and hard about any debt that goes beyond these two items. Cars and homes you need the rest you live without, the don't teach you this in school but it's uncommon sense most people need to learn and seldom will.

Turbo Charge Your Profits With Options

I know many people who trade stocks. Most of the US house holds have stocks in various companies. Have you tried options? Many people think Options are only for professional traders and the big boys. It is not so. Let me explain in simple terms what are the pros and cons of options. Here is how the option works. Assume that you see a house in your street and the owner is planning to sell it retiring and moving to Florida within one year. The current market price for the house is $215,000. You go and talk to the owner Brad and tell him “Hi Brad; I would like to lock in this house for the price of $220,000; I will have the right to buy this house for this price for one year (i.e. till December 2006). For this I will pay you $2000.”. Now you and Brad come to an agreement; Brad gives you the right but not an obligation to buy the house till December 2006 at a price of 220,000. You have the right and not the obligation that is important which means if the house price goes down you don’t need to buy it at 220K. Now in end of 2006, the house prices came up and now Brad’s house is now worth $235,000. Now you call a real estate agent sell it for 235,000 and give 220,000 to Brad and pocket a profit of 15,000 (minus your option premium of $1000). So your net profit is $14,000 on an investment of $1000. That is like 1400% return on your money. If you had bought the house at 215,000 and sell it for 235,000 you might have made 20,000 or about 10% return on your money. The options trade is explained in the author's website completely with examples. We encourage the users to read the complete example and start getting more profit.

Managing Your Finances Once Married

It’s important to plan for your financial future beforehand so you have idea of what to expect. Once you get married, most newlyweds’ open a joint checking/saving accounts Below is a list of 4 easy steps to take when determining your financial future. Step 1-Determine your net worth Net worth is the difference between assets and liabilities. Make a list to figure out your net worth, make a list of all the things that you own and assign approximate values to each one. Then make a list of all your debts. Subtract these two numbers and you will have your net worth. Step 2- Family accounting You will need to decide who is going to manage your accounting. Is one partner going to manage the finances or will this be a shared responsibility? Are you going to choose to handle the finances independently, if not you will need to create a system of whose going to pay the bills. Step 3- Set goals Statistics are showing that 95% of senior citizens can’t afford to retire. Set goals and start saving for your future today. Create short-term goals and long-term goals. Make sure when you set your goals that you are actually striving for them so they should be adjusted to your spending lifestyle Step 4- Plan for adjusting your finances once married Many couples get married without having a financial plan in mind. It’s very important to discuss your financial situation before tying the knot that way everything is out in the open. If you don’t want to deal with thinking of financial strategies get help from a financial planner for any needed advice.

The Top 5 Reasons Why You Should NOT Invest Your Home Equity

In the past few years, hundreds of people have invested home equity, only to lose it all and get into serious financial trouble. With this in mind, here are five reasons why you should not invest your home equity. Avoiding these five pitfalls will prepare you to safely maximize the productivity of all your financial resources, including home equity. Reason #1: Personal Consumption If you're going to use any of your home equity to purchase items of personal consumption, do not touch it. This is the single most prevalent and damaging pitfall with this strategy. Consumption is anything you spend money on that does not directly return money to you, such as clothes, food, vacations, jewelry, cars, boats, etc. Consumption must be sustained by production, which means creating value for others in such a way that value is returned to you. When your consumption exceeds your production, the only logical outcome is insolvency and eventual bankruptcy. The Solution: The wealthy never use their assets to consume--they only consume the profits generated by their assets. Only access home equity to produce and invest in things that will generate returns. Your home equity is your golden goose. Don't kill it by consuming it--use it wisely to enjoy the golden eggs it can produce. Reason #2: Lack of Knowledge & Chasing High Returns With home appreciation rising in double-digits, banks giving loans liberally, and people having access to investments promising high returns, the exuberance of many so-called investors in the past few years has only been exceeded by their ignorance. People were putting money into investments that they knew very little about, they had no idea where the money went, they had no idea how to control the investment, and were doing so simply because they were receiving high returns. That is until it all came crashing down. The Solution: If you don't know where your money is going, what it's doing, how it's creating value, what your exit strategy will be, what the tax consequences are, and how you can recover if it's lost, don't do it. Also, if your primary reason for wanting to invest in something is to make money, don't do it. Only invest in things that reflect your knowledge, abilities, expertise, and passions. Reason #3: Unsafe Investments Not only have many people been ignorant about the investments in which they have invested their home equity, but also many of the investments themselves have made very little economic sense. The investments didn't have clear value propositions (they weren't creating real value in the marketplace), they weren't collateralized (or backed by hard assets such as real estate), they were speculative, they were based on artificial demand, and they had poor or no exit strategies. The Solution: Here are just a few things to consider with any investment: Is there a real demand for this investment? Is there a clear value proposition? Is it legal? Is it ethical and moral? Is it collateralized? How well can you control the terms? Do you have the opportunity to contribute to its success in meaningful ways, or are you contributing money alone? What are the tax consequences? Can you create a foolproof exit strategy? Is the investment self-sustaining, or does it require ongoing capital contributions from outside sources? How soon will it create cash flow? Do you know the people involved? Do they have an established track record of trustworthiness and success? If you can't answer any of these questions satisfactorily, then either stay away from the investment or provide viable solutions for any troublesome aspects. Reason #4: Investments Removed From Soul Purpose Soul Purpose is the combination of your inborn abilities, talents, and passions and that provide a natural direction for your most fulfilling life. It is your greatest purpose for being on the Earth--the mission you were born for. Every thought and action leads you either closer to living your Soul Purpose, or further away from it. Few people invest in things that align with their Soul Purpose because they get sidetracked chasing high returns. Investing out of alignment with Soul Purpose inevitably leads to mediocrity at best, and failure at worst. The Solution: What are you great at doing? What things are you naturally drawn to? What are your dreams? What is your vision of your best self? What things increase your energy? These are the only things you should be investing money into. For example, if you have a passion for real estate, invest in real estate. If your passion is philanthropy, start a non-profit or contribute to an existing one. If you love cooking and entrepreneurship, maybe starting a restaurant makes sense. Creating portfolio income is hard work, and the only way you'll endure challenges is if what you're doing is an expression of your Soul Purpose. The best investment is an investment in yourself and your Soul Purpose through education. Education will help you develop your Soul Purpose and bring it to the marketplace practically and meaningfully. Reason#5: Learning the Wrong Lessons If your investment fails, what's the lesson you're going to learn? For most, the answer doesn't go further than, "I knew I shouldn't have done that!" This type of thinking is disempowering and leads people to avoid future action. They learn to stay away from investing, rather than learning how to manage it better. The Solution: No matter how well you mitigate risk, in a dynamic world things will inevitably go differently than you anticipate. Commit now to learning the right lessons when things go wrong. Learn what things you can change about yourself and your approach to increase your safety, returns, and success. Unfortunate events present amazing opportunities to become more confident with your investments, rather than cynical and distrustful. Conclusion Investing your home equity can be one of the riskiest strategies if you do so for personal consumption, to put money into things you know little about in order to chase high returns, to invest in inherently risky investments, to invest in anything removed from your Soul Purpose, or if you will learn the wrong lessons when unexpected events occur. However, it can also be a powerful strategy that will help you unlock your financial potential. To do so requires that you never borrow money to consume, you always have a good understanding of your investments and never invest to make money primarily, your investments make good economic sense and your risk is mitigated well, you only invest in things that align with your Soul Purpose, and you commit to learning the right lessons when you encounter setbacks and difficulties.

Role of Credit Bureaus in Credit Card Approvals

If the credit bureaus rate your credit high, you may find your mailbox flooded with credit card offers from the thousands of credit card issuers in the country. There are many banks offering various credit cards, with rewards this and rewards that; platinum, gold, or silver; and so many variations thereof. You may get offers from your professional organization (lawyers, doctors, and engineers), your alumni association, and your environment club or sports association. Thousands of others, who are rated as safe payers by the various credit bureaus, receive similar offers. In fact, every year credit card issuers send out several hundred millions of offers. To process all of the applications resulting from these offers, the credit card industry makes extensive use of quantification, or credit scoring, to double check whether an applicant should be issued a credit card (or even become target for other kinds of credit). The industry turns to credit bureaus for the quantification part. The credit bureaus credit scoring systems give creditors the capability to evaluate millions of applicants on a consistent and impartial basis. This has made the credit card one of the most highly efficient methods of obtaining, granting, and expending loans. The credit bureaus base their credit scoring systems on large samples of the population in order to make it statistically valid. In the credit card industry, the credit scoring system generally involves a two-step process. First, your credit card application itself is scored by the credit card company. For example, if you own your home you are likely to get more points than if you only rent one. If your application obtains a sufficient number of points, then the credit card company buys your credit report from the three major credit bureaus. The three credit bureaus operating nationwide are Transunion, Experian, and Equifax. The issuers buy from all three credit bureaus because your Experian credit report will have different ratings from your Equifax credit report, and the credit score Transunion will also differ from the rest. The variation exists because each of these credit bureaus will have different sets of businesses and creditors that report to them. Thus, although the parameters that the credit bureaus track may be similar, the quantification or credit scoring results will differ. The score on the credit report issued by each of the credit bureaus is central to the decision to issue a card. As the vice president of a company that is in the business of designing scoring models for lenders once described it, an applicant may submit an application that’s good as gold, but if the credit reports from the credit bureaus are lousy, the applicant will get turned down every time. In other words, it is the numbers on the ratings submitted by the credit bureaus, not the qualitative factors, which are ultimately decisive. It may turn out, in the end, that the majority of applicants will get approved by one credit card firm or another. Because the profits from the credit card business are extraordinarily high, credit card firms can afford to have a small proportion of cardholders who are delinquent in paying their bills or even some of those who default on their debt. Nonetheless, it is in the interest of credit card companies to weed out those who will not be able to pay their accounts. Scoring models of the credit bureaus will also vary from one locale to another, and these are regularly updated to reflect changing conditions. Despite great variation between the different credit bureaus’ reports, the following items generally receive the most weight: · Possession of a number of credit and charge cards (30 per cent or more of the points). You should realize that if you own too many cards, this may cost points, and that having no cards at all may be an even more serious liability. Having too many cards will increase the amount of credit that is available to you at any time, and it would be easy to run up your debt by charging more to the various credit cards. This is what causes concern with the lenders. On the other hand, the credit bureaus believe not having a credit card at all is definitely alarming: there must be something terribly wrong. · Record of paying off accumulated charges (25 percent or more of the points). You are likely to lose more points if you are delinquent on any of your credit cards than if you are late on a payment to a department store. The observed credit behavior that is common among the credit bureaus’ scoring models is that when people are having economic difficulties, they will try to stay current on their credit card payments but might let their department store bill slide. Thus, if you are delinquent on card bills, this is interpreted as an indication of serious financial difficulties. Delinquencies of 30 days might not cost you too many points, as allowance is given for late payments, but delinquencies of 60 days or more might well scuttle your chances of getting a new card. · Suits, judgments, and bankruptcies involving the applicant. Bankruptcies are likely to be particularly damaging to your credit rating. Officers of credit bureaus explain that among lenders, they are not in any way forgiving about bankruptcy; the interpretation is that a bankrupt ripped off a creditor and got away with it legally.’ · Measures of stability. You will earn credit points for longer tenure on the job and in your place of residence. In the scoring models of credit bureaus, someone who has lived in the same place for three or more years might get twice as many points as someone who has recently moved. · Income. It goes without saying that the higher your income, the greater the number of points you will earn from the credit bureaus on this parameter. It will certainly help if you have other income sources in addition to your job. · Occupation and employer. If you belong to the highest-rated occupations, executives and professionals, you are likely to earn a large number of points from the credit bureaus. Similarly, being in the employ of a stable and profitable firm is likely to garner you many points, whereas employment in a firm on the edge of bankruptcy is likely to be very costly. · Age. Generally, the older the applicant, the greater the number of points awarded by the credit bureaus. Those who have retired will probably earn fewer points on this aspect. · Possession of savings and checking accounts. Checking accounts, because they tend to require more ability to manage finances, generally score twice as many points with the credit bureaus than savings accounts do. · Homeownership (often 15 per cent of the total points). An applicant who owns a home is more stable than one who rents, has a sizable asset to protect, and is responsible for regular payments. This translates to higher points awarded by the credit bureaus. The role of credit bureaus in making credit card approvals a speedy process cannot be overemphasized. Although you may think the system is arbitrary or impersonal, it does help make decision-making faster, more accurate, and more impartial than individuals. The credit bureaus thus take pains to ensure that their credit scoring models are properly designed to embody this impartiality and give equal credit opportunity — including those who may not garner enough points and become marginal cases in the overall credit scoring system.

The Danger of Inflexible Enterprises

Copyright 2006 Geoff Gannon Whenever a large investment has been made in a particular area, whenever there is a lot capital, people, and ego tied up with some operation, the transition away from that operation is apt to be far slower than what an objective observer would have expected. As an investor, it’s easy to look at a corporation from afar and see the business the way a rational capital allocator would see it. But, very few people within the organization are able to take such a farsighted view. They are not able to asses the matter dispassionately. There are jobs at stake. There is the admission of defeat. And there is the question of identity. Just as importantly, these problems hang over the managers every day. Staying too long in a dying business is rarely the result of one major misstep – rather, it is the result of a series of seemingly innocent steps that merely serve to delay the inevitable. Recognizing the terrible importance of the inflexibility of an enterprise that is tied to a particular line of business, mode of production, or labor force is a difficult task. Many value investors have been caught in this trap. Some business appears to offer excellent value today; but, if it should cling too long to its old ways, that value will be destroyed. It’s tempting to think that managers will see the obvious danger, act to remedy the problem, and forever change the organization, before the inevitable occurs. But, that kind of thinking requires a leap of faith. It is too easy for the investor to believe what he wants to believe – to assume that somehow tomorrow will take care of itself. Even Warren Buffett, a man who has been ever vigilant in his efforts to avoid prolonged entanglements in businesses with poor economics, has suffered from delusions of an easy transition. There are probably three good examples of such delusions from Buffett’s career. Discussing only two will be sufficient (the third would be Baltimore department store Hochschild-Kohn). Buffett suffered from his most recent delusion in late 1993. That’s when Berkshire Hathaway acquired Dexter Shoe. Buffett now realizes that deal was a mistake. In the 2001 annual letter to shareholders he wrote: “I've made three decisions relating to Dexter that have hurt you in a major way: (1) buying it in the first place; (2) paying for it with stock and (3) procrastinating when the need for changes in its operations was obvious…Dexter, prior to our purchase - and indeed for a few years after - prospered despite low-cost foreign competition that was brutal. I concluded that Dexter could continue to cope with that problem, and I was wrong.” Buffett lists three separate decisions. I don’t think the way he presents the Dexter Shoe debacle is simply a thoughtless arrangement. Buffett is admitting he shouldn’t have bought Dexter Shoe at all. He shouldn’t have bought it with stock or cash. His purchase was based on a false premise. It wasn’t simply a matter of overpaying (by using stock). It’s also interesting to note the third decision he describes: “procrastinating when the need for changes in its operations was obvious”. That’s a pretty harsh admission. Buffett refers to procrastinating as a decision. No doubt it was a daily decision, not a one-time choice between two separate paths; nevertheless, it was a costly decision. Excusing inaction as being somehow a lesser offense than an incorrect action is a common occurrence in business; but, it is not a productive way to learn from one’s own mistakes. Especially in investing, inaction must be judged just as harshly as action. The most interesting part of all this is the fact that Buffett separates the purchase itself from his failure to push for change at Dexter Shoe. He does not suggest that buying the business and then trying to change it would have worked well. Buffett seems to be saying the best course would have been not to buy the business in the first place. I think he’s right. The risks involved in purchasing an inflexible business are difficult to quantify. However, they are real. These risks are frequently large enough to destroy any apparent value that comes in the form of a bargain price relative to high current earnings (or cash flow). A business that is purchased because it can throw off cash can quickly become a money pit. Often, the buyer is well aware of this possibility. However, he manages to convince himself that the necessary transition will be made with the speed demanded by a rational assessment of the facts and a desire to put capital to its best possible use. Operating managers rarely see things so clearly. Even when the road ahead is clear, the will is often lacking. It is easy to rationalize decisions that seem to offer a middle course. A gradual transition is always a tempting possibility. Who wouldn’t want to convince themself that a retreat is really a fighting withdrawal? In the 1985 annual letter to shareholders, Buffett gave Berkshire’s reasons for remaining in the textile business as long as it did: “(1) Our textile businesses are very important employers in their communities, (2) management has been straightforward in reporting on problems and energetic in attacking them, (3) labor has been cooperative and understanding in facing our common problems, and (4) the business should average modest cash returns relative to investment.” “It turned out I was very wrong about (4)…I won’t close down a business of sub-normal profitability merely to add a fraction of a point to out corporate rate of return. However, I also feel it is inappropriate for even an exceptionally profitable company to fund an operation once it appears to have unending losses in prospect.” The delusion Buffett suffered under was only in regard to his fourth reason for remaining in the textile business. The belief that modest returns will be realized from a sub-par business is an attractive one. A rational assessment of the facts would have lead to the opposing conclusion. Past experience demonstrated that apparent possibilities of future profitability based on greater efficiencies and improved conditions within the industry rarely lead to any actual profits. There was always hope. But, there was rarely any proof that such hope was justified. “Over the years, we had the option of making large capital expenditures in the textile operation that would have allowed us to somewhat reduce variable costs. Each proposal to do so looked like an immediate winner. Measured by standard return-on-investment tests, in fact, these proposals usually promised greater economic benefits than would have resulted from comparable expenditures in our highly-profitable candy and newspaper businesses…But the promised benefits from these textile investments were illusory.” An objective observer would have seen the flaw in the arguments offered in support of such investments. The industry was plagued by an overabundance of capacity. In the past, there had been a terrible misinvestment of capital that diverted a great flood of money into a seemingly attractive industry. Unfortunately, that capital did not go into easy to recoup investments. It went into massive expenditures that saddled the owners with high fixed costs. A factory that produces nothing is worse less than nothing. It’s a money pit. The owner has only two choices: exit the business or attempt to obtain the most favorable variable costs by any means necessary. If enough players opt for the latter the game is no fun for anyone. “Many of our competitors, both domestic and foreign, were stepping up to the same kind of expenditures and, once enough companies did so, their reduced costs became the baseline for reduced prices industrywide. Viewed individually, each company’s capital investment decision appeared cost-effective and rational; viewed collectively, the decisions neutralized each other and were irrational (just as happens when each person watching a parade decides he can see a little better if he stands on tiptoes). After each round of investment, all the players had more money in the game and returns remained anemic.” The image of a crowd of parade watchers on tiptoes is a good one for investors to keep in mind. This is what a bad business looks like. This is the kind of investment you want to avoid. A corporation rarely exits a business on economically beneficial terms. It does so in its own time – long after the unending decline becomes obvious. An inflexible enterprise is one that is tied to a particular line of business, mode of production, or labor force. Most businesses are not as closely tied to these things as you might think. A few are. Xerox and Kodak (EK) are two examples from the recent past. General Motors (GM) is still tied to a labor force from a bygone era. GM is an example of a business that is so inflexible it is tied not only to a particular industry but to a particular position within the industry. The company was not structured in a way that allowed it to slim down in the event of a loss of market share. For some businesses, a shift in the structure of their market can be as disastrous as a shift in technology. The consequences of such shifts can be dire. The good news is that it is not difficult to see which companies are exposed to these future threats. General Motors was a huge, unionized enterprise. It held a very large share of the U.S. market. It obviously had to maintain its market share. That may not have on the mind of investors a few decades ago, because the idea that GM would lose market share might have seemed absurd. But, if they had considered the matter, they would have seen that GM’s survival was largely dependent upon maintaining a very large share of the U.S. market. Likewise, if Intel (INTC) or Microsoft (MSFT) lost much market share, they’d have to make huge changes very quickly. The current structure of those companies can’t be supported by a small share of the market. Of course, it would be much easier for these businesses to shed tens of thousands of employees than it is for General Motors. At the same time, no sane investor is buying shares of Intel or Microsoft unless he expects them to maintain roughly the same share of the market for their products that they currently control. Future market share is a key consideration at both these firms, because the weight of the expenses they have taken on would crush any company that is not the biggest player in the industry. The companies literally employ small armies. In fact, the combined workforce of these two companies is no less than the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. So, clearly both companies have made rather large commitments predicated upon their continued dominance. Without that dominance, these commitments would become crushing burdens. You need to give some thought to the flexibility of any business you invest in. The greatest risk facing a large enterprise is a decrease in revenues that can not (or will not) be offset by a similar decrease in expenses. The “will not” part is important, because I’ve learned that it is easy to put too much faith in management. No one likes to make tough decisions. The fact that a problem is obvious does not mean those who understand the problem will necessarily seek to solve it. I have no doubt that many in Congress recognize that the national debt is a problem. I also have no doubt that they recognize it is not in their interest to address the problem. They would like to see someone else address it at a later date. Everyone would. It is too easy to rationalize a thousand small steps. Then, you never have to admit your one big mistake. It may be that no one consciously chooses to tie a business to an inflexible and potentially perilous position. Likewise, it may be that no one consciously chooses to continue down that path. But, that is often precisely what happens. If the problem is not addressed until it must be addressed, it is too late for the owners. The losses in both time and money are already too great. Therefore, it may be best to look for businesses where managers will not be required to make tough decisions. An investment based upon the belief that managers will make tough decisions is always a risky investment – regardless of the fundamentals.

Things You Should Know About Buying a House part 3 of 3

Choosing your home. Usually, this is the second time when you should keep a cool head. Questions you should ask yourself here are: is this going to be your house for the next 50 years or is this a stepping stone towards your dream home? how is the commute between your house and your work? is this house going to fit your family's needs in 2, 5, 10 years? can this house be improved cosmetically with minimum effort and would this considerably affect it's resale value? is the neighbourhood's reputation going to change in a foreseeable future? where are the drugstore, grocery store, bank, video club, restaurants? is there public transit available? will the flooring cause your kids to have allergies? how easily can this house be maintained? the most important question of all: do you actually like this house? Bonus question: will this house fulfill your entertaining needs? You must like it if you don't want to grow to hate it. Buying a house does require your whole family to make some sacrifices. You have to like your house, at least a little, if you don't want to resent each payment. Watch home makeovers or hire a professional to help you make your house appealing to your senses as this can often be done for little money and make a tremendous difference in how you fell every time you pass your front door. You can't know it all nor should you have to. Surround yourself with trustworthy advisers such as an accountant, a lawyer and a real estate agent who has a reputation of integrity and good negociation skills. Choose advisors you are comfortable with as you will have to share some intimate information with them. And finally. Have fun as this should, if done right and with good advisors, be a very enjoyable process! Good luck with your purchase.

U.S. cracks down on hiring of illegal immigrants

The Department of Homeland Security issued a new workplace regulation today, imposing penalties on employers who knowingly hire those who cannot legally work in the U.S. Called the "No-Match" regulation, it gives companies 90 days to verify a hire's identity and eligibility to work if an employee's Social Security number doesn't match information in the Social Security Administration's database. Companies who do not fire workers who cannot provide proper documentation in that timeframe risk fines as high as $10,000 for each of these employees, if it can be proved that the firms knowingly flouted the law. This regulation could be problematic for small businesses, which often lack the human resources staff and immigration expertise to review documents and ensure their authenticity, say some advocates. "They aren't in the document-review business, and some fraudulent documents look pretty legitimate," says Karen Harned, executive director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses Legal Foundation, a Washington, D.C. based lobbying group. Sometimes, an employee's records might not match the government's because of a perfectly legal name change or a clerical error, and a company that acts too hastily might end up on the fast track to a discrimination lawsuit, she adds. Some business owners say they are being proactive about asking for proper paperwork but worry that these efforts may not be fail-safe. "We do our best to look at documentation to the best of our ability," says Jim Balmain, owner of Smith's Bakeries, which generates $3.5 million annually with 55 workers at seven locations in Bakersfield, Calif. "But if employees have something phony we can't catch because it's a high-quality forgery, I don't think we should be penalized. I'm having lunch with my Congressman at the end of the month to discuss it."

Internet Banking - How Secure is it?

The biggest concern that people have when they start using Internet banking is security. The media is full of scare stories about foreign hackers breaking into thousands of bank accounts and draining out all the money, leaving some poor old couple missing their life savings. Many people have even been scared out of signing up for Internet banking at all by these kind of stories, thinking that it somehow puts them at risk. However, as long as you take the time to learn a little about the Internet, nothing could be further from the truth. Before we go any further, there is one thing that is absolutely the most important thing you can know about Internet banking security. It is this: there is absolutely no guarantee that emails are from who they say they’re from. E-mail was designed back before people were concerned about Internet security (that’s why you get so much spam), and if you know what you’re doing, it’s really very easy to make an email look like it came from absolutely anyone, anywhere. With this in mind, you should simply ignore any email that says it comes from your bank, and never click any links that the emails may contain. That’s the biggest risk out of the way, but there are still a few other things to watch out for. When you go to your bank’s website, make sure that you’ve really ended up at the right place by looking for the address in the address bar towards the top of the screen – it should be the address of your bank’s website, not anything strange. Also, make sure to look for the padlock icon in the bottom-right of your screen, as this tells you that your connection is secure. If you’re ever in doubt, close your web browser and start again, copying the bank’s website address carefully from a letter they sent you.

So why has Internet banking taken off in such a big way?

Internet banking is becoming more popular with each passing day. Fewer and fewer people are ever going to their banks, preferring instead to use the Internet to manage their money, check how much they have and pay bills. You can even pay in cheques by post, removing the reason most people go to banks. More and more banks are being established as ‘Internet banks’, working entirely online with no physical branches and customer service by email and telephone only, and many people report good experiences with these banks. So why has Internet banking taken off in such a big way? Most of the answer is to do with the adoption of broadband. Back in the days of dial-up, few people wanted to their banking on the Internet, feeling that if they had to dial then it was easier to just call the bank and not have to go through so many security checks. Since broadband came on the scene, though, more and more people have been able to check their bank account any time, both at home and at work, and have started to find the Internet to be the most convenient way of dealing with their bank account. As Internet banking saves the banks money on branches and staff, they have been keen to get as many people signed up for it as possible, sending out regular letters and trying to get people to sign up for it in the branch. They see it as a win-win situation: they make more profits, and the customers are happier at having quicker access to their accounts. Internet banks, even if they have few customers, are very profitable indeed, which allows them to offer higher interest rates to their customers than high street banks, enticing gradually more people to move away from ‘real world’ banking altogether.