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Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) and Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) recently announced the rollout of Rapid Alerts for Wells Fargo Visa credit cardholders. The free service allows consumers to better manage and track their spending while providing them with near real-time¹ detection of potentially fraudulent activity.

Rapid Alerts by Wells Fargo are enabled by Visa’s transaction alerts platform. Alerts are sent on behalf of Wells Fargo directly from VisaNet, Visa’s global processing network, typically within seconds of a transaction occurring. Rapid Alerts are triggered when the transaction meets certain criteria previously selected by the Wells Fargo Visa account holder and delivered via text message or e-mail. Rapid Alerts let consumers monitor their Wells Fargo Visa credit card account activity and take immediate action if they believe a potentially fraudulent transaction is taking place.

Rapid Alert messages contain the amount, time and date of the transaction, as well as currency conversion and information relating to the merchant, such as name and location. Rapid Alert messages help customers track their spending and better manage their finances. Customers also will be alerted to Wells Fargo Visa credit card payments that are declined, which may also help remind customers of recurring payments that they forgot to update due to a reissued, lost or stolen card.

For more information, visit wellsfargo.com.

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Credit Union ONE recently presented a check for $17,000 to the Karmanos Cancer Institute – bringing its fundraising total to more than $1.2 million over the past 23 years, with $400,000 raised just through the credit union’s Affinity Card program since it was Credit Union ONE’s most recent donation has gone towards the purchase of a new bladder scanner.

Through Credit Union ONE’s Affinity Card program, the credit union and Karmanos share income generated by cardholder transactions. Other fundraising monies have come from a new member initiative created by Credit Union ONE several years ago. Credit Union ONE made a pledge of $400,000 in 2005 with its “Building a Cancer Free Future” campaign plus $100,000 for the Nurse Mentorship Hispanic Breast Outreach Program.

The credit union also has supported several other aspects of Karmanos’ research fundraising efforts, including the Gail Purtan Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, special events through the Karmanos Annual Dinner and Partners, as well as third party fundraising events and Karmanos’ population studies program.

Credit Union ONE, headquartered in Ferndale, is a full service financial institution offering an array of consumer and commercial financial services. Gary Moody, president and chief executive officer of Credit Union ONE, said the credit union is humbled to be part of the cutting-edge cancer research taking place at Karmanos.

For more information, visit karmanos.org.

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After Congress passed legislation last year reining in some of the worst credit card lending practices, many banks responded by hiking interest rates before the new rules went into effect, including on customers with perfect bill paying records. Now Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports, is calling on the Federal Reserve Bank to require banks to roll back those unfair interest rate hikes and to put stronger limits on the size of penalty fees and interest charges.

The Fed has already proposed new regulations that would limit penalty fees and require banks to reconsider interest rate hikes imposed during the year leading up to the enactment of key CARD Act protections on February 22, 2010. But the proposed regulations don’t go far enough according to Consumers Union and should be strengthened to ensure consumers are more likely to see their old interest rates reinstated and don’t face unfair penalty fees and charges in the future.
The Fed’s proposed regulations would require banks to review interest rate hikes made on customers between January 2009 and February 22, 2010 and to reduce those rates “as appropriate.” But under the proposal, banks are allowed to keep secret their review process with no oversight by the Fed.

Banks could keep the higher interest rate if the reason for the old rate hike still exists, or if the bank decides to come up with a new reason for the higher rate. Banks would not be required to start this “look back” process until six months after the regulations go into effect – in other words, starting in late February 2011.

Thousands of consumers have contacted Consumers Union over the past year to complain that their credit card interest rates were raised unfairly. Many consumers reported that their banks acknowledged that interest rates were raised because of the economy or a change in market conditions and not because of anything wrong done by the consumer. Other consumers reported that their interest rates doubled or tripled after they were a day or two late making their payment or for other minor mistakes. Before the new credit card protections started on February 22, banks were allowed to raise interest rates on existing balances at any time for any reason.

Starting on February 22, banks were prohibited from raising interest rates on a credit card customer’s existing balance unless the customer has a variable rate card, a promotional rate has expired, or if the customer is more than 60 days late making the minimum payment.

The Fed also has proposed regulations required by Congress under the CARD Act that are meant to ensure penalty fees and charges are “reasonable and proportional” to the customer’s violation of the credit card contract. However, the Fed’s proposed rule only applies to penalty fees such as those imposed for going over the limit or being late with a payment and not penalty interest rates.

Under the Fed’s proposal, penalty fees would be allowed only if a bank can show the fee is a reasonable proportion of the total cost to the bank caused by the customer’s violation of the credit card agreement or if the bank proves that the fee amount is necessary to deter the same kind of violations in the future. The rule also proposes a complicated “safe harbor” provision which allows a bank to pick a permissible fee amount without doing the cost or deterrence analysis.

Consumers Union urged the Fed to broaden its proposed regulation so it extends to the size of penalty interest rate hikes in addition to fees and to limit those rate increases to no more than seven percentage points above the non-penalty interest rate. Consumers Union called on the Fed to simplify and strengthen the “safe harbor” provision for penalty fees by setting it at five percent of the violation or no more than $10.

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As incoming college freshmen prepare to turn in their acceptance letters on May 1, many families are scrambling to figure out how to fund their teens’ education. Nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of teens surveyed indicated they had changed their college plans because of the economy, up from 55 percent last year. This is among the key findings of the 2010 Junior Achievement/Allstate Foundation “Teens and Personal Finance” Survey, now in its eleventh year of gauging teen attitudes and behaviors in money matters.

Included within the 63 percent whose college plans have changed, 41 percent are working more to pay for college, 37 percent are staying closer to home or are not attending college out of state, 21 percent plan on going to a community college and 15 percent may delay school for one year or longer.

Economic pressures and steadily increasing tuition are forcing teens and their families to exercise financial discipline to pay college costs. An overwhelming majority of teens—90 percent—report they and their families are saving for college, with 53 percent of those teens saving their own money and 83 percent reporting their parents are saving for their college educations. However, a quarter (25 percent) hasn’t determined how they will pay for college.

Interestingly, 86 percent of teens say they plan on getting college scholarships. Yet, only 66 percent of all undergraduates received some type of financial aid in 2007–08, including grants, loans and scholarships, according to the U.S. Department of Education (the most recent year for which information is available). Those who miss out on financial aid opportunities will be left with tough financial decisions to make.

Of those students who do receive some type of financial aid, U.S. Department of Education data show that the median amount of student-loan debt carried by 2007-08 bachelor’s degree recipients at public four-year colleges was $17,700 and $22,375 at private four-year institutions.
This debt level has taken its toll on students’ ability to repay their loans, as evidenced in the rise of student-loan default rates. The latest data from the U.S. Department of Education show that default rates are up from 5.2 percent in 2006 to 6.7 percent in 2007.

Considering that nearly seven percent of college graduates default on their student loans, it is imperative that teens weigh their ability to service their student loans when making college and career choices—equally important are solid financial planning and disciplined money management.
Junior Achievement and The Allstate Foundation have partnered to create Junior Achievement, $ave USA, a financial literacy initiative comprised of free, downloadable money management exercises for parents and their children to do together—and free, downloadable classroom lessons for students at the elementary, middle, and high school levels.

For more information, visit ja.org.

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