Sherry Tingley

Check-Users Are Hoarding More

July 23, 2014 by Sherry Tingley

Echoes of the Great Recession are still resounding in the minds of many Americans. They are holding more cash in their checking accounts and for longer than at any time in the past 25 years.

The recession has had a different impact than expected, experts say. In earlier periods of low inflation and a slowly improving economy, there was less attention to becoming debt-free and solvent, they say.

Among the pertinent factors is a lack of inviting investment alternatives. Savings accounts pay next to nothing and the stock market already is at lofty heights, according to a report recently released by the bank consulting firm Moebs Services Inc. The report looked at average balances in U.S. checking accounts and compared them with the same data from 25 years ago. The current average was $4,436, more than double the $2,100 posted 25 years ago.

The average balance in checking accounts during good economic times, with unemployment and inflation low, is about $1,400, the report said. With less cheery economic times, consumers tend to be more wary of spending and checking balances rise to the neighborhood of $3,000 or more. In 2007, for instance, the average balance was $788. That was just before the Recession caused a near-meltdown of the country’s economy, the report noted.

On the downside, the reluctance to spend has slowed the recovery. Spending usually accounts for about two-thirds of economic growth, said Moebs economist G. Michael Moebs, who heads the company. The firm’s report on bank balances was based on data from Federal Reserve figures for 2,800 banks and credit unions.

The hoarding trend also affects financial institutions, who lose income from overdrafts. Financial gurus are advising those institutions to expect big funds withdrawals when consumers are convinced that the fallout from the recession is over and they are safe to take out their money for mortgage-reduction, vacations or big item purchasing.

An article on the Moebs report in the Los Angeles Times quotes UCLA economist Lee Ohanian as saying the country may still be plagued by troublesome leftovers from the recession. He notes that even though employment is up by some 200,000 jobs in each of the past five months, growth in production is at less than half its usual rate. He relates the figures to the fact that the employment-to-population ratio still is low.

The recession caused a lot of serious reflection about personal finances, Ohanian said. People who had racked up too much debt pre-recession and suffered the consequences now are being much more cautious about what they do with their money.

Even now, with a return to near-normal employment and better incomes for many Americans, it likely will take awhile before full confidence in the economy is restored. Most experts see this as a good thing over time. Adjustments for both consumers and financial institutions will take time, they say.

Many Opting To Become Landlords Rather Than Selling

June 25, 2014 by Sherry Tingley

Renting your property can increase your net worth.

Over the past few years, historically low mortgage interest rates, coupled with surging rents, has convinced some homeowners to hold onto the properties they bought, rather than selling them. Instead of becoming sellers, they become landlords. That is having an effect on the housing market, according to mortgage experts. The homes that become rental properties take a whack out of the homes available for sale. Low inventories and limited sales growth are being reported across the country.

In a CNN Money article, Glenn Kelman, CEO of the brokerage Redfin, reported that he gets the same story from people that might be expected to sell their homes, but are not going to based on the low interest and high rents. Some 19 percent of current homeowners bought or refinanced homes during the period from 2011 to 2013, when interest fell to below 3.4 percent. That represents a significant part of the potential pool of today’s home-sellers. Kelmlan interviewed several and got similar stories from them. The figures tell the tale in each instance.

Susan Young of Lawrence, Kansas, said she refinanced in 2013, obtaining a 3.25 interest rate on a 30-year fixed loan. She has since bought another home, but retains the first as a rental property. The $1,100 monthly rent she receives is several hundred dollars over expenses. She applies the profit to her mortgage.

“If the interest rate were high, I’d sell,” she said. ” But this is such a perfect loan package, I just can’t bring myself to give it up.”

The Chris Cannons of Mt. Lebanon, Pa., said they are looking at a move and anticipating starting a family. But they’re expecting to rent the Mt. Lebanon property to take advantage of the great deal they got when they bought it in November 2012. Interest was 3.4 percent on a 30-year loan and they paid a couple of points to reduce the interest further – to just 3 percent. They believe they can rent their home for $1,400 to $1,500 per month, which will meet their monthly mortgage and taxes, which amount to $1,100, with money left over.

The factor that is providing such favorable circumstances for landlords is the average 20 percent rise in rents nationwide since 2006. Even homeowners who found themselves underwater when the housing market went wacky may benefit from renting rather than selling at a loss.

On the other side of the scale is the fact that not everyone enjoys being a landlord. You are responsible for repairs to your property and must deal with sometimes-difficult tenants. You take a chance on the renters taking the same care of your property that you would yourself.

But for many, it is an attractive option if the numbers can be worked to their advantage.

Move Over, Magnetic Strip, The Chip Is Coming

June 7, 2014 by Sherry Tingley

Most credit cards in the United States feature a magnetic strip that is easily captured and copied. But in the rest of the world, the EMV chip has largely succeeded the magnetic strip as a method of making credit cards more secure. And the U. S. is fast making the switch.

American Express, Discover, MasterCard and Visa all have announced plans for joining the move to an EMV chip-based payment infrastructure, according to the Smart Card Alliance. In contrast, more than 84 percent of cards issued in Western Europe already have the chip-and-Pin technology.

The chip has been integrated into the merchant’s handling of sales. In restaurants, the waiter often brings the bill on a hand held card reader. The customer inserts a credit card into the reader, enters her PIN and the transaction is complete. The customer never loses control of the card and the chip technology has highly secure built-in safeguards against theft of the card’s information.

The chip embedded in a card has the same computing power as an X286 computer, according to Jack Jania, vice president for strategic alliances at Gemalto, which produces the chip-enabled cards and the infrastructure to support them. Each chip has an operating system and several apps, depending on the level of security, whether it works with signatures or with PINS.

The chips, not surprisingly, cost more – $1.25 to $2.50, compared with 25 cents for a traditional magnetic strip. But the added security is worth the cost. Fraud prevention has been the impetus behind the chips. American cardholders have been particularly vulnerable to fraud. The introduction of the chip, along with other anti-fraud measures over the next couple of years, is expected to make big inroads into the problem.

BMO’s Diners Club, which has headquarters in Canada, where the chip has been long entrenched, was the first to introduce the chip onto the American scene, followed by the United Nations, the U.S. State Department and Andrews Air Force Base, all of which have many international interactions. Other American companies, including popular national merchants, are rapidly adopting the technology.

Some American banks now offer chip-implanted cards to top corporate accounts, but don’t promote them below that level, to the chagrin of some travelers. The situation is aggravated for them because some merchants in foreign countries shun America’s traditional magnetic strip cards. As the complications multiply and more Americans find themselves in long lines waiting for a teller to process magnetic strip cards, the impetus for the switch will magnify, industry leaders predict.

Both for the convenience in travel and for the added benefit of more anti-fraud security, the chip is coming and it can’t come too soon for many Americans.

What’s New With The Target Security Breach?

March 7, 2014 by Sherry Tingley

The biggest known corporate breach in U.S. history was perpetrated on Target in November, 2013. Hundreds of stories have been written about it in the news, on blogs and magazines. That comes as no surprise considering the current number of customers affected reaches upwards of 100 million.

The looming question in consumers minds remains. Who is responsible for the Target credit and debit card breach? Brian Krebs, and American journalist and investigative reporter who runs a computer security website has identified a likely suspect – Andrew Hodrievski of Odessa, Ukraine. Attempts to contact the suspect proved futile, but Krebs was able to email an associate of Hodrievski. After exchanging emails with the associate, Krebs Security was offered $10,000 not to publish the incriminating information. Hodrievski has not been arrested or questioned.

How Did They Do It?

The who question may have been answered, but the how question is still somewhat of a mystery to the public. Investigators have determined that the hackers were able to breach Target’s security through a third party vendor. Fazio Mechanical Service provided heating and air conditioning for the stores. After hacking into Fazio’s computer they gained the vendor’s username and password into Target. The hackers then used the same username and password to hack into the point of sale information where all customer information is stored.

Hackers then uploaded software to retrieve customer data for them. They tested the software on a handful of registers. Within two days they had access to a majority of Target’s cash registers and point of sale information. Thus the fraud began. Once they had customer data they sold the data on underground internet sites. The value of this data has gone down significantly as banks have purchased the same data, disabled cards and reissued new ones.

Investigators think the vulnerability was caused by the lack of two factor authentication for remote access, which is required by PCI Data Security Standards. PCI Standards help merchants to secure all Point Of Sale transactions. Apparently Target used one network for most of their data while they should have been two different networks. Isolating 3rd party remote access for vendors and customer data would have added another security measure needed and possibly helped prevent this type of security breach.

Latest News

Beth M. Jacob, chief information officer and executive vice president for Target’s technology services resigned from her position on Wednesday, March 5, 2013, just one week after Target posted their 4th quarter losses of $1.5 billion dollars compared to the previous year’s figures. More encouraging news in this case would have been that the criminal behind the attack was arrested.

Consumer Protection

For consumers who are now worried about their accounts being drained by complete strangers there is no magic bullet. The best thing to do at this point is to learn how to set up automatic alerts from your bank to your cell phone any time a transaction on your account occurs. You can then call the bank immediately when you discover any unauthorized transaction and prevent further loss.

10 Tips To Break Bad Banking Habits

February 17, 2014 by Sherry Tingley

You may be losing money every month because you aren’t aware that some of your basic banking habits can be pricey. Some common mistakes that people keep making come to the attention of banking analysts and are shared with you in this guide to keeping more of your money in your pocket.

Tip #1 – Stay Current With Your Account Fees

You may have opened your bank account 20 years ago when there were no fees charged to you. Take the time to talk to your bank and ask them what fees they can charge your particular type of account. It may be time to change the type of account you currently have.

One woman was getting charged $27 a month and went into the bank to complain. Her account was designed to encourage savings and would charge a $1 per transaction fee each time she made a withdrawal or processed a transaction. Setting up a different type of account would save her $324 a year.

Tip #2 – List Dates Of Your Automatic Withdrawals

Nothing is as frustrating as checking your online balance, thinking you have money to spend and then not realizing that an automatic withdrawal is pending. Forgetting about the pending withdrawals can be draining your bank account.

Go online and download a month’s worth of activity. Filter out all the automatic withdrawal transactions and figure out exactly what dates the amounts are deducted. Keep the information in a spreadsheet or print it out and carry it with you.

Tip #3 – Discover The Location Of Approved ATM’s

When you withdraw money from ATM’s that are not associated with your bank, you can get charged fees in varying amounts. The fees might not be big, but they could easily put you into an overdrawn status. Now those fees can be large and will make you cringe.

Find the ATM’s that are near your work, where you dine out and near where you shop and use them. One customer had $50 worth of ATM fees in a month. When asked why he couldn’t find approved ATM’s his response was that he knew where they were, he just couldn’t be bothered with walking across the street. Walking across the street could potentially save him $600 a year.

Tip #4 – Save Loose Change

It may be annoying to carry loose change, but having a strategy to deal with it can really add up to some decent money. When you get home from work or shopping, just toss the loose change in a large jar. When the jar gets full, bring it into the bank and use their coin machine to count it and return you with paper currency. You’ll be surprised how much is really in that jar. Take care of the cents and the dollars will take care of you.

Tip #5 – Check Online Accounts Daily

Face it. Some people don’t even do this monthly. One customer went into her bank and was very upset. She had no money in her account. Upon investigation, it was discovered that she had a joint account with an ex-partner and she had never had his name removed from the account. For five years the partner had been stealing from her account in small increments. It was only when he decided to take it all that she even noticed.

Tip #6 – Reduce The Number Of Accounts

Some of us get creative with our savings or checking accounts, opening too many to even remember what they are for. Balancing and tracking all that information is very time consuming and for most people too much of a hassle to handle.

Then there are those people who are flattered when they get a sales pitch to open a new credit card. They think it is cool that someone else says they have great credit so they open another account. Having too many credit cards provides you with too many temptations.

Limit the number of accounts you have. Trim down the number of your credit cards to make them easier to manage. Trim down the number of checking and savings accounts if tracking and managing them becomes too easy to make costly mistakes.

Tip # 7 – Distinguish Between Wants and Needs

The difference between what we think we need and what we actually need, can be enormous. Overspending can lead us to overdrawn account fees, excessive credit card use and a feeling of being out of control.

Advertisers are relentless when they pitch us so we really have to be aware of our own needs. Designer clothes, handbags, eating out, multiple Ipads and cell phones may have their appeal, but they can’t be classified as needs. Spend money on your needs first.

Tip # 8 – Maintain Minimum Balances

If your bank requires you to have at least $300 in your account, find out what fees they can charge if you drop below that amount. If you have believe you are entitled to spend money if you see it in your account, take a new approach. Deposit the minimum balance and in your record keeping system don’t add that amount into your perceived balance. That way the money will always be there. Just leave it alone.

Tip #9 – Check Your Excess Withdrawal Fees

Some accounts will penalize you for withdrawing money. They are designed to encourage you to save and can charge per transaction. Ignoring the terms of the account incurs more expense than you will ever earn on the interest.

Tip – #10 – Set Up Mobile Alerts

Some banks will let you set up text alerts that go directly to your mobile phone. You can text in requests to see your account balances, account activity, make transfers and find ATM locations near you.

Alerts can also be set up to send you a text under specific conditions that you choose. Remind yourself when your balance falls below a threshold or learn when a deposit has been made.

Use technology to make your life simpler, avoid bank fees and live a happier life.

What bad habits do you want to break?