Another Swipe Fee Battle Unfolding

Another major dispute on interchange fees could take place, and this one may have new, painful consequences on consumers. This time, the battle centers around the swipe fee that retailers pay on credit card transactions.

According to CNBC, there is an antitrust suit between five million retailers and Visa, MasterCard, and 13 large banks, including Citi, Bank of America, Chase, Capital One, U.S. Bancorp, and Wells Fargo. Retailers claim that banks and the payment systems have unfairly worked together to increase the amount of the interchange fee retailers pay on credit card transactions.

The amount that each retailer pays as a swipe fee varies widely but the industry average is approximately 2%. This antitrust suit could cut that figure by three-quarters down to 0.5%. That would be one more devastating revenue blow to the banks …

Suze Orman Introduces Prepaid Card

It didn’t work for the Kardashians. Perhaps it will for Suze Orman.

Orman is the latest celebrity to jump into the prepaid card market. As a well-known financial adviser with a strong following, she just may have the clout to capture a significant portion of the market.

Prepaid cards have historically targeted consumers with poor credit who could not qualify for a standard credit card. These cards were easy to get, but were loaded with exorbitant fees. That began to change last year when American Express introduced its own prepaid card with fewer fees.

There are some nice advantages to Orman’s Approved Card. It has fewer fees than most prepaid cards: there are no loading fees, no fee to transfer money to another card, and no fee to make electronic bill payments. The card comes …

Gift Cards — Use Them Before You Lose Them

The holiday presents have been unwrapped and most of us received at least one gift card. Now is the time to shop with these cards while they are still fresh in our hands.

The National Retail Federation predicts that 80% of people have purchased gift cards this holiday season and shoppers will spend an average of $43.23 per card. Total holiday spending on gift cards in 2011 reached $27.8 billion. That number grows each year because gift cards are the easiest present to give, saving time and shopping stress for the giver.

Surprisingly, it is also a present that goes unused. Last year, 113 million Americans received gift cards during the holidays, but at the start of the 2011 holiday shopping season, a quarter of recipients still had an unused gift card from last year.

“For some reason, …

Top 10 Debit and Credit Card Stories of 2011

This past year was a very eventful one in the debit and credit card industry. Here is a review of the top ten stories of 2011:

Debit Card Interchange Fee

The government regulation of the debit card interchange fee was the most controversial issue of the year. The Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul bill went into effect on October 1. Before the legislation, the interchange fee averaged 44 cents per transaction. Now, the reduced fee is 21 cents plus an additional amount to cover losses from fraud. This cost the banks billions of dollars in lost revenue. The interchange fee was intended to resolve a bitter issue for merchants but it also ignited unintended consequences for consumers, such as banks dropping rewards for debit card purchases in the spring and proposing to add fees …

Credit Report Data Getting More Personal

Credit reporting is a booming business. Agencies now sell data about how much you make, how much you owe, even predicting if you will take your medication. Taking care of what you credit report says about you should be a financial resolution for 2012.

Credit agencies are finding new ways to collect and assemble data on individual consumers. Credit reports can now reveal evictions, applications for payday loans, even if you are behind on your homeowner’s association dues. Agencies analyze and sell this data to lenders, employers, insurers and renters who use these reports to make judgments about you.

Credit agency CoreLogic will soon provide credit files that dig deeper than the three traditional credit bureaus–Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax. According to the New York Times, this will include property tax liens, if more is owed on a …

Another Protest Scheduled Against Big Banks

The outrage toward large banks continues.

Fresh off the heels of consumer protests over monthly debit card fees and “Bank Transfer Day” is a new movement that speaks out against high credit card rates.

December 11 has been deemed “Balance Transfer Day” where consumers are encouraged to switch from high interest credit cards to lower or zero rate cards.

The Balance Transfer Day’s Manifesto statement on Facebook encourages consumers to “demand the same 0% interest rate that banks receive from the federal government” and “create our own bailouts by using a balance transfer as a means to bail ourselves out of credit card debt.”

“Criticizing high interest rates is a fair point, and encouraging cardholders to transfer balances to a card with a lower rate can help save them money in interest payments. This is a good …