New Checking Account Overdraft Rules Now in Effect
Your real options are explained here by Bill Hardekopf, CEO of LowCards.com and author of The Credit Card Guidebook.
“Some Americans may be surprised by new changes in their checking accounts.Overdraft protection is no longer available for checking account customers unless they “opted in” for this service. The new Federal Reserve rules started yesterday.
Before these new Federal Reserve rules took effect, most banks automatically added courtesy overdraft protection to checking accounts, providing the detailsand fees in the fine print. Some customers didn’t realize the high price of thefee until they incurred the charge.
An overdraft occurs when one does not have enough money in a checkingaccount to pay for a transaction, but it is paid by the bank anyway.
This service is a loan from the bank and it isn’t free. Banks charge anon-sufficient funds paid item fee (NSF) that is typically $30-$40. A fee is charged for each transaction paid in this manner.
If you did not opt in, your bank’s standard overdraft practices no longer apply to your everyday debit card and ATM transactions. These transactions typically will be declined when you don’t have enough money in your account,but you will not be charged overdraft fees. The new rules don’t lock you to your choice forever; you can still make changes to your account. You can choose to opt in or out of overdraft protection at any time.
The rules are good for consumers, but will reduce revenue for banks.
Some banks will try to persuade customers to choose the “benefits” of overdraft protection since banks are anxious to hold on to as much fee income as they can.
“This is a good time to sign up for free online alerts offered by most issuers. You can get a daily text or email that tells you the balance inyour account. Knowing the amount of money in your checking account can help you avoid the embarrassment of a declined purchase,” says Bill Hardekopf,CEO of LowCards.com and author of The Credit Card Guidebook.
The new rules do not cover checks or automatic bill payments–banks can stillauthorize and pay overdrafts for these transactions at their discretion andcharge a fee. If you do not want your bank’s standard overdraft practices inthese instances, talk to your bank; they may give you the option to cancel. Statistics on how many people have opted for overdraft protection are notyet available.
A July poll conducted on the National Foundation for CreditCounseling website found that that 26% of 2,089 respondents intended toopt in for overdraft protection.If you are interested in the overdraft protection, be sure to carefully readthe fine print to understand its costs and limitations.
The cost of an overdraft may not end with the NSF paid-item fee. If your account remains overdrawn, you might incur additional fees.
Secondly, transactionsare not necessarily processed in the order they occur so banks can chargethe items to your account in any order they choose.
Finally, even if youchoose to opt-in, the payment of an item is discretionary. Banks willchoose which transactions to cover so a consumer can’t always can’tcount on having overdraft protection when you need it.
Your bank may offer less expensive alternatives to overdraft protection. Some banks allow you to create a link to your credit card, savings accountor line of credit that will fund overdrawn transactions. There is a fee foreach transaction, but it is typically $5-$10, much less than the overdraft protection.You must contact your bank to set up this alternative service, since it is not part of the opt in selection.”LowCards.com ( http://www.lowcards.com ) simplifies the confusion of shopping for credit cards. It is a free, independent website that helps consumers easily compare credit cards in a variety of categoriessuch as lowest rates, rewards, rebates, balance transfers and lowestintroductory rates. It also gives an unbiased ranking and review fore ach card.
The LowCards.com Complete Credit Card Index( http://www.lowcards.com/CreditCardIndex.aspx ) is the most objective and comprehensive resource on the Internet which allows consumers tocompare rates for over 1000 credit cards offered in this country.Created by Hampton & Associates, the company has been analyzing thecredit card industry and supplying objective websites on variousconsumer expenses for ten years.
For more information, contact Bill Hardekopf at 1-800-388-1910 orbillh@LowCards.com.
The GREEN TRANSITION SCOREBOARD™ from ETHICAL MARKETS, the independent global multi-media company, tracks total private investment in companies growing the green economy since 2007.The mid-2010 update shows a rise to $1,646,719,228,993 from $1.24 trillion at the end of December 2009.The report was released today by founder-CEO HAZEL HENDERSON, D.Sc.Hon, FRSA , futurist and author of Ethical Markets: Growing The Green Economy (Chelsea Green, 2006).Dr. Henderson has advised the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment, the National Science Foundation and the National Academy of Engineering, tracking these technologies since the 1970s.
Dr. Henderson, creator of the GREEN TRANSITION SCOREBOARD™ (GTS), stressed its vision and purpose, “Our mission of fostering ethical markets and growing the green economy worldwide is shared by millions of entrepreneurs, inventors, scientists, engineers, venture capitalists, investors, pension funds, as well as civic groups, academics, students and employees of incumbent industries in the fossilized sectors in many countries.This requires the revolution in corporate and national accounts we have long advocated – now underway by the new International Integrated Reporting Committee (IIRC) steered by 33 organizations, including the Global Reporting Initiative, the UN Principles of Responsible Investing and many other pension funds and accounting bodies worldwide, with the backing of the International and US Accounting Standards Boards.”
As Matthew Kiernan, founder of Innovest and founder-CEO of Inflection Point Capital Management, author of Investing in a Sustainable World, explains, “The GTS makes a uniquely useful contribution to the necessary macro-economic transition in at least two important respects: it adopts a much more comprehensive and therefore effective working definition of a green economy than is usually the case, and it also provides a robust and consistent framework for measuring our progress towards it.“
“The GTS is an important milestone in measuring the increasing economic viability of the CleanTech universe,” says Stuart Valentine, president of Iowa Progressive Asset Management, a leading US investment firm. “Since 1987, we have guided our investors towards companies leading the growing green economy: the Sustainability Sector.”
Henderson adds, “The GREEN TRANSITION SCOREBOARD™ measures concrete progress as we traverse this great global transition from the Industrial Era to the information-rich, cleaner, healthier and greener Solar Age.”Reports confirm this, such as the July 2010 study Solar and Nuclear Costs – the Historic Crossover by economist John O. Blackburn, former Duke University Chancellor, which finds that solar energy is now cheaper than nuclear.
Helen Rake, principal for Collins Capital Management, Inc., in Jacksonville agrees: “The Green Transition Scoreboard™ gives our ESG clients a true barometer of significant change going on in corporations around the globe.”
Ethical Markets, its partners Mercado Etico, the World Business Academy and the thousands of groups linking to Ethical Markets see this Green Transition as inevitable, viable and achievable, by scaling up existing technologies and energy efficiency gains.This website links to many studies, computer models and reports which indicate that investing $1 trillion every year until 2020 can ramp up material and energy efficiencies, reduce costs of wind, solar, geothermal, water, sustainable land-use and forestry, which together with smart infrastructure, transport, building and urban re-design, can accelerate the Green Transition worldwide.
Timothy Nash, M.Sc., Ethical Markets’ Senior Advisor and Director of Sustainability Research, compiles and analyzes the Green Transition Scoreboard™. “The mid-2010 total of over $1.6 trillion puts G-20 countries on track to reach our 2020 target of $10 trillion.This $10 trillion goal is much less than the $23 trillion U.S. taxpayers are liable, including bailouts since 2008 (www.sigtarp.gov) and only represents 10% of global pension and institutional portfolio assets of some $120 trillion,” says Nash. “This figure has outpaced even the most optimistic expectations for investments in the green economy, providing tangible evidence that investors are shifting their assets and that momentum is building for a green economic transition.”
Henderson and Nash share the hope that this data and the shift to “triple bottom line,” ESG accounting standards will encourage pension funds to follow the lead of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) to shift more of their portfolios away from risky investments in the fossilized sectors and commodities speculation to more direct investments in growing the green sectors.
Nash adds, “Our new totals are broken down into five categories: Renewable Energy; Efficiency and Green Construction; Cleantech; Smart Grid; and Corporate R&D. (Click here for report). We welcome all enquiries!”
Ethical Markets Executive Director Rosalinda Sanquiche, M.Sc., says “Individual investors see the green economy growing on Main Street.We welcome non-profit groups to access the full report by installing our GTS icon with a link to www.greentransitionscoreboard.com on their websites, free of charge for the next 30 days.”
·Timothy Jack Nash, Ethical Markets Media Senior Advisor and Director of Sustainability Research; President, Strategic Sustainable Investments, tim.nash@ethicalmarkets.com, 416-821-9179
As Barnes & Noble considers selling itself—and its founder considers forming an investor group to buy it—it, along with e-book rivals Amazon and Apple face an investigation into suspiciously uniform prices for e-books by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. [Press release]
ALEXANDRA PELOSI’s latest for HBO Documentaries premieres at 9 p.m. 7/26/10:
In the Emmy-nominated filmmaker’s sixth documentary, Pelosi chronicles the lives of children living on the poverty line in one of the nation’s richest counties.
Rep. Judy Biggert and Sen. Chris Dodd introduced the film in Washington last week.
The Internal Revenue Service may be preparing to revisit whether certain types of nonprofit sponsorship revenue should be considered taxable unrelated business income. While the IRS has taken no definitive steps in that direction, experts say nonprofit organizations and their corporate partners should be alert to the possibility of a review of the safe harbor for some sponsorship benefits and, more immediately, be aware of the government’s recent heightened scrutiny of sponsorship activity
The Dodd-Frank bill, like all major pieces of legislation, is tailor made for politicians. The rhetoric rains down like ticker tape, from supporters and detractors alike. Some might call this the “toughest restrictions on the financial industry since the Great Depression,”as the Washington Post did.
Others might lambaste it as a gross regulatory overreach that will kill American jobs and send the banking business overseas.The truth of course is obscured somewhere in the middle. You could take every major plank and argue it to death.
The Volcker Rule sounds good in theory, but even Paul Volcker notes it was significantly watered down.
So all in all, we’d have to sound two cheers for financial reform. Here areseven reasonswhy it can’t be three cheers. The big winners really are the lobbyists. They fought hard for the industry, and won more than a few victories. They will stay employed as they work to influence regulators over the long haul, as the bill leaves much to be decided. Some of the most important protections will not kick in until thecurrent administration is long gone. When the spotlight dims, the lobbyists might really have their way. And we might never hear about it.
Three days after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico began on April 20, the Netherlands offered the U.S. government ships equipped to handle a major spill, one much larger than the BP spill that then appeared to be underway.
“Our system can handle 400 cubic meters per hour,” Weird Koops, the chairman of Spill Response Group Holland, told Radio Netherlands Worldwide, giving each Dutch ship more cleanup capacity than all the ships that the U.S. was then employing in the Gulf to combat the spill.
Why does neither the U.S. government nor U.S. energy companies have on hand the cleanup technology available in Europe?
Ironically, the superior European technology runs afoul of U.S. environmental rules.
The voracious Dutch vessels, for example, continuously suck up vast quantities of oily water, extract most of the oil and then spit overboard vast quantities of nearly oil-free water. Nearly oil-free isn’t good enough for the U.S. regulators, who have a standard of 15 parts per million — if water isn’t at least 99.9985% pure, it may not be returned to the Gulf of Mexico.
Is the big retailer now taking a definitive step in that direction? Last week, it emerged that the company had taken an ownership stake in Green Dot, which manages the retailer’s prepaid debit cards. Green Dot is currently seeking regulatory approval to acquire a small Utah-based bank for $15.7 million, notesFortune.
Wal-Mart has tried and failed on several occasions to garner a banking license, always in the face of noisy opposition from the industry. In 2007, it dropped plans to gain an industrial-bank charter in Utah. Most people assume it is only a matter of time before Wal-Mart takes the plunge, damn the opposition. The marketing advantages would be awesome, and banks are right to fear such a move.
The time would appear to be ripe. Americans are generally dissatisfied when it comes to credit and debit card practices, not to mention mortgage practices. Wal-Mart has the kind of heft that would allow it to make a huge, consumer-friendly splash.
But the industry will not take this sitting down. If you thought local retailers in many areas fought hard, just wait until national banks train their sights on the firm.
BP’s flawed handling of the environmental crisis in the Gulf of Mexico is creating an identity crisis for the company, according to management professors Hamid Bouchikhi of the ESSEC Business School in France and John R. Kimberly of the Wharton School.
The two wrote about BP’s equally faulty treatment of the 2005 explosion at the Texas City refinery in their book, The Soul of the Corporation: How to Manage the Identity of Your Company. Now they offer six steps that BP should have taken to mitigate the damage — and that other companies should consider when it’s their turn to cope with crisis.
Count me among those that believe that the G-20 is one of the better approaches to global governance in a world that desperately needs improved international policy coordination. While the G-20 has not gotten to where it could and should be, its periodic meetings provide us with important insights into global policy issues.
Ed: There follows a dissection of the G20 communiqué and the piece ends with:
I fear that all this may continue to catch off guard at least three dimensions that are still significant in today’s marketplace:
Mindsets that have difficulties recognizing regime shifts, preferring instead the illusionary comfort of the more familiar cyclical frameworks;
Approaches that focus excessively on rates of change and inadequately on levels; and
Investment portfolios that are over-exposed to equity and credit risk, and that maintain insufficiently hard interest rate duration.
In concluding, I would repeat what I said early yesterday morning when asked by a reporter
“What does the US jobs report mean for markets?”
” Investors should keep their seat belts on and tight.”
