Two of the UK’s leading high street banks have announced plans to scrap charity credit cards as of the end of February.

Halifax and Bank of Scotland, are withdrawing their charity credit cards from the market. Lloyds Banking Group, which manages the card scheme, found that the credit cards are an ineffective way of donating to charity.

The credit cards raised over £1.1 million in 2009 for Cancer Research UK, NSPCC and the Scottish SPCA.

The credit card operated in a similar way to credit card cash-back schemes, with donations being made each time a cardholder makes a transaction.

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Saturday was the Chinese New Year, according to the lunar calendar, so Happy Year of the Dragon to everyone!  One of the best parts, aside from the food, the fun, and the family get-togethers of Chinese New Year is the cold, hard, cash. Traditionally, parents, or elders, would give red envelopes stuffed with money to their kids for the New Year. Thanks to some relatives who were visiting this year, we received a little bit extra in our red envelopes. So with the $400 (woo!) we got, we promptly increased our Galapagos Fund to $10,400.

By the way, the title of this post is a cute play on the New Year’s greeting in Chinese: “Gong Xi Fa Cai” means “Wishing you a prosperous New Year”, and “Hong Bao Na Lai” means “Red envelope, please!” The two sounds would rhyme in Mandarin.

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Rewards credit cards are one of many marketing tools adopted by the credit card companies to attract customers. This brief guide will describe how choose and get the most out of them. Typically, providers try to attract customers by connecting their purchases with definite benefits, such as travel credit card offers. These reward programs are highly desirable, when a little bit of vigilance and caution is used, while choosing them.

In an era when financial specialists discourage the use of credit cards, reward programs appeared as one of the finest examples of clever marketing, with the potential to offer a win-win solution as for the credit card provider and its customers. Read more…

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Credit cards are useful, but potentially dangerous financial instruments. When used correctly, they offer security, benefits, and rewards that make them a vastly superior payment to cash, checks or debit cards. However, when using credit cards to incur revolving debt, there can be expensive drawbacks.

Unlike a loan for a fixed amount, credit cards are revolving charge accounts. This means that borrowers can continue to incur additional debt each month, even as they make payments on their existing balances. For consumers, this is a hazardous aspect of a powerful financial instrument. Too often, cardholders make purchases without regards to their ability to pay for them, and must therefore carry a balance.

As time passes, this practice becomes a habit as they incur more debt at a rate faster than they are paying off their existing balances.

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WASHINGTON

— As top Justice Department officials announced a historic, $335 million fair-lending settlement on Wednesday, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said about 15,000 African-American and Latino borrowers in Illinois who took out real estate loans from troubled mortgage giant Countrywide are entitled to compensation.

Madigan was in the nation’s capital as top Justice officials announced the proposed pact arising from Countrywide loans to members of the two minority groups from 2004 to 2008. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called it the Justice Department’s largest residential fair-lending settlement.

Nationwide, about 200,000 qualified minority borrowers suffered discrimination, he said. According to the Justice Department, Countrywide charged higher interest rates and fees to African-American and Latino homebuyers than to white applicants with similar income levels and credit scores.

The now-defunct Countrywide was the largest mortgage lender in Illinois from 2004 to 2007, according to Madigan, who condemned the firm as “synonymous with subprime lending.”

The far-reaching agreement was hammered out in the aftermath of a lawsuit filed by Madigan against Countywide and its subsidiaries in 2010.

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