How do credit card companies manage to offer 0% interest rates?
I haven’t spoken to any credit card companies about this so this is purely speculative but I would imagine they borrow funds at a set interest rate for a set term. They then take on new customers at 0% in the knowledge that some of those [...]

Thanks to the introduction of Chip and PIN your debit and credit cards are “much less likely to be used fraudulently in the UK” according to Apacs, the UK payments association.
However, in order for Chip and PIN to be successful, we all need to continue to look after our PINs to keep them out of [...]

You can now take control of your credit card finances with the three new calculators just launched on compareandsave.com.
All three of our new calculators are easy to use and will display your results in writing, as a graph and in a table, giving you the information you need to know what to do next.
We have [...]

In April, the Marbles credit card brand closed it’s doors to new customers.
I don’t remember seeing much in the way of publicity about this but what has come to may attention is the fact that certain existing customers of Marbles have been seeing their interest rate slowly rise.
I spoke to Marbles about this and although [...]

Isn’t it a good thing that credit card companies are finally going to be stopped from increasing their customers credit limits without consent!
It’s like a breath of fresh air after a crazy time of money madness.
I’ve had the letters: ‘we’re happy to say we’ve increased your credit limit’.
My initial thought has always been ‘that’s nice’ and then [...]

But is it a good idea?
On the surface the new Barclaycard ‘Breathe’ card looks fantastic for anyone that is environmentally concerned.

50% of profits donated to worldwide projects that help tackle climate change
Discounts and low interest rates on selected greener spend such as money off insulation and discounts on bicycles at Halfords.

The profits are already being used to [...]

After reading a misleading advert regarding an M&S credit card offer, a UK consumer withdrew a number of Euros expecting to pay no interest until January 2008.
Turns out the offer was for ‘brand new customers only’ and their subsequent statement revealed £20 worth of interest.
Several calls and appeals later, M&S finally repaid the interest but not without [...]

Could it be possible, that because there are a large number of websites advertising a particular product, they could affect how changes are made to that product?
For example, credit cards.
Some advertise 0% until May 200X…..
Some advertise 0% for 13 Months.
In order for the company advertising ‘May 200X’ to remain competitive, this needs to become ‘June 200X’ the [...]

MBNA have now increased their credit card balance transfer fee to 3%. One of the last leaders in the credit card industry to reach the 3% mark.
Virgin still offer 13 months at 0% with a fee of 2.98% (not much of a saving!) but most of the long 0% offers are now charging around 3% for [...]

Fraudsters have stolen over 45 million credit card numbers from a well known retailer’s database.
Hackers accessed the database of TJX (TKMaxx in the UK) several times over a period of 4 years and only stopped when suspicious software was discovered in December last year.
The company revealed details in January about suspected fraudulent activity accessing customer card [...]