Earlier this week, the bulk of the 2009 Credit CARD Act came into force. The new law includes regulations covering many aspects of the card business, including APRs, Fees and statement design. As a part of a drive for fairness in payment processing, the CARD Act includes a number of provisions relating to card account payments. For instance, clients now must be given at least 21 days between the date a bill is mailed and it become due, payments received by 5 pm ET on the due date must be considered timely and the Payment Due Date must fall on the same calendar date each month. While these may seem like common sense provisions, they represent a break from the way billing and payments processing has been done by many firms in the past.

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According to Limra (via a story in this morning’s Ignites), total US VA sales were down 18% from 2008, though it seems most of the loss ocurred in the first half of the year. Given the shambles that was the financial market in general last year, this statistic is not too surprising, but it will certainly be on the minds of attendees at the upcoming IRI conference in New York starting Sunday.

If you are planning to attend, please drop by and see us at our booth. During the conference, we’ll be unveiling a new paper that looks at the state of annuity advisor websites. Using our website audit methodology, this paper will provide readers with the top five firms and best practices in the following categories:

• Advisor WEbsite Design & Usability
• Advisor Product Information & Marketing
• Advisor Sales Resources
• Advisor Sales Tools
• Advisor Literature Order Systems
• Advisor Services

I will also be leading a panel discussion Social Media and what place it has within the annuity industry. Joining me on the panel will be Jon Caddell, Digital Advertising Director at ING Financial Services; Stephen Johnson, Director Participant Services Marketing at TIAA-CREF; and Don Montenaro Chairman & CEO of TradeKing. I hope to see you there!

E*TRADE announced to many of its banking customers today that the firm has sold some of its existing savings accounts to Discover Bank.

According to an email from E*TRADE, clients who currently have a Complete Savings Account from E*TRADE Bank will have their accounts converted into a Discover Online Savings Account as of March 7th, 2010. E*TRADE’s email points out that other banking and brokerage accounts at the firm will be unaffected by the transfer to Discover Bank. While neither firm has yet released much information about the account conversions, a link within the E*TRADE client email leads to a welcome page from Discover Bank. Continue Reading »

January was an interesting month with firms wasting no time introducing new products and advertising campaigns. There was a new contest from Fidelity, new products from American Express and AXA Equitable, a new statement design from Vanguard and upcoming statement changes announced from Barclays and Discover.

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