Search For Credit Cards

In the past few months, many recent graduates have begun earning a regular paycheck, and may be taking steps to compare credit card offers to attain more flexibility with monthly bills and student loan payments.

Often, these young adults are given credit cards with low credit limits, which in turn may increase their desire to take out multiple lines of credit.

However, these young adults may be taking out too many credit cards and increasing their debt risk, Washington news provider The Olympian reports.

Recent graduates who want to secure more credit can pursue other options, such as contacting their lender and asking for their limits to be extended.

In addition, because these consumers have just entered the workforce, major lenders may be hesitant to issue them more than one credit card, the news source says.

As a result, applications could be denied and the consumer’s credit score could suffer.

However, by holding onto a credit card longer, and building up a positive repayment history, young adults can improve their chances of being approved for new credit lines in the future.

The lesser known VantageScore made another inroad in its battle with the almighty Fico score, grabbing a patent for its system of “characteristic leveling.”

In short, characteristic leveling provides consistency among the 3 major credit bureaus, something the traditional Fico score has struggled with (why credit scores are different?)

So if the same data is presented by different credit bureaus, it should yield the same result, or credit score.

“The ability to use a common score across the three CRCs minimizes consumer and lender confusion,” said VantageScore Solutions President and Chief Executive Officer Barrett Burns, in a press release.

“Because of VantageScore’s consistency across all three CRCs, lenders who use it will be better able to delineate risk in a predictive manner.”

This is pretty important because many banks and mortgage lenders currently rely on the middle of our 3 credit scores when making a decision to extend credit.

And borrowers have to worry about disparities between their credit scores, which are often the result of different reporting by bureaus using the same data.

In fact, many consumers have such a wide range of scores that they may be deemed excellent by one, and only average by another.

The hope is that with characteristic leveling in place, differences in credit score will only be attributable to different data sets, as opposed to differing scoring algorithms.

This increased consistency could lure more creditors over to VantageScore, which is currently a small fish compared to the all-powerful Fico score.

Recently, Fico also lost the trademark on its 300-850 credit score range.

If you’re a fan of prepaid cards, have a tough time opening a checking account or a credit card, Western Union may have an answer for you. Western Union, along with InComm, is kicking off its “MoneyWise” General Purpose Reloadable prepaid card. This complements the Western Union “GoCash” in-lane money-transfer service offered through 150,000 InComm retail locations in the U.S., including grocery and convenience stores, pharmacies, and mass merchandiser locations. Issued by MetaBank, the Western Union “MoneyWise” Prepaid Card can be reloaded in-person at any of the over 46,000 participating Western Union Agent locations in the U.S.; used for direct deposit through an employer; used to load a Western Union Money Transfer transaction directly; and added to online using a bank account.

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Banks have pushed up average credit card rates to the highest level in 13 years, turning the screw on customers battered by soaring living costs.

Families reeling from higher fuel, energy and food bills are being squeezed ’till the pips squeak’, critics said.

The average credit card interest rate has hit 18.9%, despite the Bank of England’s base rate having been at a 300-year low of just 0.5% for nearly two years.

The last time the average rate was so high, in February 1998, the gap between it and the Bank of England base rate was 13.85%. Today it is 18.4%.

Some banks, including those majority-owned by the taxpayer, are effectively charging more than 50%, once annual fees are taken into the equation. This is delivering massive profit margins to the finance giants. They say the higher rates are needed to cover bad debts and because rising unemployment and pay curbs are making lending more risky.

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