Archive for the 'Credit Cards' Category
Published by Jeffrey Latzer on 11 Mar 2010
For nearly a year and half, most Wachovia customers have been waiting patiently to see when and how the merger with Wells Fargo would affect them. For some customers, this process has been too slow, as seen in the comments sections of the Wells Fargo – Wachovia Blog. That said, it appears that there’s finally a light at the end of the tunnel.
Last week, Wachovia removed all its branded credit cards on the public site, and replaced them with Wells Fargo cards. As for existing card customers, on April 10, 2010, all Wachovia credit card accounts will officially be integrated into Wells Fargo, and aside from a site outage from April 9-11, service should be uninterrupted, as card numbers and rates will stay the same. It’s currently unclear if Wells Fargo will mail clients newly branded cards after the conversion, but clients can still use their old cards in the interim. Continue Reading »
Banking, Client Communications, Credit Cards
Published by Ian Lundahl on 04 Mar 2010
Following several months of new product releases, tools, and web promotions, the pace slowed across the industry this February. A few firms revamped their sites this month, and as the athletes took to the slopes in Vancouver, one firm promoted its 2010 Winter Olympics sponsorship online.
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Banking, Brokerage, Credit Cards, Marketing, Security, social media
Published by Doug Miller on 26 Feb 2010
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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Credit Cards
Published by Ian Lundahl on 05 Feb 2010
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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Advertising, Brokerage, Credit Cards, Marketing
Published by Ian Lundahl on 07 Jan 2010
As 2010 begins, we take a look back at the changes made across the financial services industry in the last month of 2009.
Of particular note, some credit card firms started to get into the holiday spirit with charity-focused giving initiatives and new tools were introduced across several industries.
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Credit Cards, Marketing, Planning, education, mutual funds
Published by Michael Ellison on 16 Dec 2009
Take a look at the statement image. On it, you’ll see roughly $30,000 in fraudulent transactions. On 9/26 there are seven transactions, in Helsinki Finland for just under $5,000 each. How these charges made it through any kind of reasonable security check is beyond us.
It should be noted that the cardholder, one of our employees, has never set foot in Finland. Continue Reading »
Client Communications, Credit Cards, Customer Service, Security
Published by Michael Ellison on 18 Nov 2009
As readers of our Credit Card Monitor Update know, Barclay’s recently announced their Gconomy Visa Card, which rewards customers for environmentally friendly actions like recycling. Bank of America also offers an eco-conscious card – the Brighter Planet EarthSmart Points Visa – which works to build renewable energy projects across the US.
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Credit Cards, Marketing
Published by Doug Miller on 25 Aug 2009
With the introduction of Chase’s new Ultimate Rewards program in July, we decided to switch our coverage from the firm’s legacy (and no longer promoted) Flex Rewards card to the Ultimate Rewards-affiliated Freedom card. The easiest way to do this, we assumed, would be to call a customer service representative (CSR), tell them we currently have a card account, and see if they could help us switch the account over to the new rewards program. When we actually called Chase, however, we hit a wall of confusion. Continue Reading »
Client Communications, Credit Cards, Customer Service
Published by Ian Lundahl on 17 Aug 2009
July was a time for getting back to basics, it seems, as a number of firms introduced simplified or stripped-down versions of products. Credit card firms lead the way with changes from Bank of America, Wachovia and Wells Fargo.
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Annuities, Banking, Brokerage, Credit Cards, mutual funds
Published by Ian Lundahl on 09 Jul 2009
June was a busy month as firms, now well past the seasonal crunch of tax season and the radical market swings from earlier this year, made changes across the board, introducing new products and marketing campaigns, and some unique new tools as well. Continue Reading »
Annuities, Banking, Brokerage, Credit Cards, etc., mutual funds
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