On June 27, 2012, Barclays agreed to pay $455 million to U.S. and U.K. regulators to settle an allegation that they were involved in an interest rate fixing that affects financial system worldwide. Regulators after a two year investigation found that the Barclays “systematically” attempted to rig the London interbank offered rate (Libor). Investigations were involved with suspected interest rate manipulations during the 2008 market turmoil.

Introduced in October 1984, Libor is an average interest rate that leading banks charge to each other for borrowing money. Therefore, it is the benchmark interest rate around the world. Many financial institutions, credit card companies, mortgage institutions, and others set the interest rate they charge to their customers and their financial products based on Libor. Worldwide, over $350 trillion worth of financial products are tied to the Libor.

Major banks including Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, HSBC Holdings, JPMorgan Chase, and Royal Bank of Scotland Group have been investigated by the regulators of the U.S. and the U.K. Many bank officers suspected to be involved in the scandal including the Barclays CEO Robert Diamond and COO Jerry del Missier has been fired or forced out of the job. Many more will become the victims of the scandal in the near future.

The European debt crisis is shifting its attention from Greece to Spain now that Greece is considering leaving the Euro Zone. This time it is Spain’s declining property values and failing banks causing concerns. It is estimated that Spain has $230 billion troubled real estate assets. The Spanish government is struggling to deal with the issues due to recession and the 24 percent unemployment rate, one of the world’s largest. Spain’s economy is twice the size of Greece, Portugal, and Ireland combined and its problems are far more deep and massive than Greece.

Banking problems in Spain are centered on BFA-Bankia. After losing 34 percent of its share value in less than one year, the government nationalized the bank on May 9, 2012. Government has pumped massive amount of funds to stabilize the bank. The European Union is also coming up plans to help troubled banks.

Home and office building activity in Spain was the main source of growth for the country for years. At the top of the boom, the construction accounted for 20 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. Unlike in Ireland, Spain did not address the issue immediately when the real estate market tanked.

On Thursday, May 10, 2012, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Jamie Dimon, of the JP Morgan Chase announced that the banking behemoth’s unit in London, U.K. lost $2 billion in a risky derivative investment deal over last several weeks. Later several published reports admitted that the actual paper loss may even be higher than previously announced. Later reports also indicated that several high ranking officers of the bank either offered to resign or left the company. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is also investigating the incident. The company stock continued to lose value since the incident disclosed.

Derivatives are a contract between two or more parties. The value is determined by the fluctuations of the underlying asset. Common underlying assets include stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities, interest rates and market indexes. Derivatives are complex agreements and highly leveraged. They are designed to control exposure to risk and therefore, adequate insurance should be available to cover any losses.

They are so complex that Warren Buffet once called them “weapons of mass financial destructions”. The irony for JP Morgan Chase is that they argued against Dodd-Frank financial control legislation which is intended, among other things, to limit or curb bank involvement in similar derivatives.

Article written as guess post by Total-Merchant-Services.com

Setting up a wireless credit card terminal for your business can be accomplished by contacting a merchant services provider.  By doing this, one ensures their ability to easily reprogram their terminal and to effectively process payments online.  This should be required for any online business in order to protect security and keep online terminals operating at all times.  One can manually accept payments online and accept checks in the same fashion as a credit card with the setup of a virtual terminal to handle online transactions.

Wireless credit card processing should run smoothly in order to ensure the effectiveness of their business.  Most merchant services providers develop valued partnerships with mainline banks in order to provide a smooth and safe service for their clients.  Internet credit card processing can be safe with an effective merchant service, which will often establish a long-standing point of contact with a client to help their business maintain its best possible position from a sales perspective.

For any online business, the payment card information of customers becomes of the highest priority.  In setting up wireless credit card processing, a merchant credit card terminal can go a long way to limit and even detect transaction fraud.  Terminals can update themselves or be treated manually in order to handle a particular case.  Standards have been set within the industry to provide a safe environment for online transactions on the ends of both the customer and the merchant, who both rely on the maintenance of tight security within the various payment options provided by an effective online business.

Maintaining a high credit score has its perks. Even in the current economic climate, a small business owner with good credit can easily get approved for a small business loan to grow or launch their company. But walk into a bank or credit union with a bad credit score in your bag and you’re sure to be met with opposition. Asking for money to launch or grow a business without having a good credit score to back you up is nearly impossible.

But, the good news is there are other financing options for small businesses with bad credit. Sure, you might not convince a bank to loan you the money, but you might qualify for a business cash advance through a different lending company.

A popular business loan alternative, a business cash advance is the quickest and easiest way for small business owners with bad credit to get the collateral they need to grow their business. Whether you want to open a second location, remodel your store, or launch a brand new company, you can receive up to $500,000 to attain your business goals regardless of your credit history.

Do you need money to expand your small business, but afraid of being rejected due to your low credit score? You can receive fast business working capital with a business cash advance based on future sales.

Target-date funds are attempting to simplify your investments for retirement. According to the time horizon of the participant, investment in the account will move from more stock oriented investments when the person is younger to more conservative investments such as bonds when the investor is closer to retirement. Therefore, these funds provide a hassle free investment approach to many participants in retirement funds such as 401(k) and 457 plans.

Since the Pension Protection Act of 2006 endorsed the use of target-date funds as a reliable retirement vehicle, participation has swelled. The Investment Company Institute estimates that a whopping $343 billion is invested in these funds as of September 2011.

One disadvantage of this type of funds is that if an employee enrolls in a when he or she is closer to the retirement, depending on the market conditions they could lose some of their investments. As a result, some investment companies are diversifying investments into real estate investment trusts, Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), commodities and similar investment vehicles.

If you are participating in an employer provided 401(k) plan, consult your investment adviser to see whether investing in a target-date fund is suitable for you. It could give you a peace of mind in this otherwise very turbulent market.

Since March 2009, U.S. markets are experiencing over three year run. Corporate profits are increasing, jobs are gradually coming back and the overall economy is showing improvement. Standard & Poor’s 500 Index doubled over the three year period and Dow Johns hit 12,000.

In spite of these gains, trading in New York Stock Exchange has slowed to an average 768 million shares, lowest level since 1999. Investors withdrawn more money from mutual funds compared to deposits for last five years. Why investors are moving away from the market?

Europe debt crises especially the fear of a Greece debt default are still haunting the market. China is putting breaks on bank loans to slow down the rampant growth. The U.S. unemployment is easing much slower than expected. Middle East is embroiled in political turmoil. Israel is determined to stop Iran developing a nuclear weapon. A year later, Syrian uprising is still going on. U.S. Presidential election is around the corner.

So the fear and anxiety over many matters are keeping investors at bay. However, the markets are hitting new highs every week. It will take some time to dispel fears and entice investors to participate. When that happens markets will zoom even higher.

In these tough economic times, many people find themselves troubled when it comes to money borrowing. People tend to have bad borrowing practices and this makes them debt over burdened. The 4 Worst Ways To Borrow Money are discussed below.
Top on the list is title loans. These are loans given to title holders of an asset such as vehicles. The loan requires that the borrower surrenders the legal document of ownership of the vehicle to the lending party and will reclaim possession after the full clearance of the loan. The loan has a combination of hiked fees and rates and the repayment period is not ideal with the monthly payment instalments. This puts a huge financial burden on the borrower and puts to risk to risk their assets.

The 2nd of The 4 Worst Ways To Borrow Money is the shylock. It is similar to title borrowing but in unlike in title borrowing, you surrender the product itself and the ownership document. These loans are short term and attract interests as high as 30% payable in less than six months where the shylock assumes ownership of the good if the payment period expires. The goods involved here are often household electronics.
Payday checks are perhaps the most common of The 4 Worst Ways To Borrow Money. The loans require a proof of employment before the money is loaned to you. Your next pay check acts as the security of the loan. These loans have short payment periods and have high rates that will eat into your pay check.
A lot of you find them where they rob the left pocket to pay the right pocket. This cycle involves taking a loan to pay another loan. The danger of this behaviour is that it gets you deeper and deeper into debt as you are always paying interest for the loans.

A whopping $1.2 trillion have been invested in U.S. assets through ETFs. An ETF is traded same as a stock of a company. They are an easy way to own whole markets such as commodities or bonds or segments such as health care or financial. Index based funds require only minimal involvement of your time or the management. ETFs are a low cost alternative due to minimal “active” management involvement, provide tax efficiency based on low capital gains, provide same flexibility as buying a stock, provide much needed diversification of assets, and provide maximum transparency.

There are approximately 1,400 ETF products available for your selection. The explosive growth of this segment of the market has resulted in another 900 ETFs waiting on the wings. An ETF could be simple as Standard & Poor’s 500 Index ETF or more complex due to mixing of various securities and require “active” management.

There are several index based ETFs which represent the underlying securities or similar assets. There are bond ETFs that invest in government treasury bonds or private company issuance. There are commodity based ETFs that invest in precious metals or futures. Also available for your consideration is currency based ETFs.

There was a time when people never considered a bad dept management. Instead, they went on with their credits, especially for personal needs. People took as much as they could from the bank and the bank gave them everything they wanted. It was an economical growth time, with plenty of job opportunities and lots of expenses. It sounds like these times were 100 years ago. As a matter of fact, they were just a few years back. Now, you have a few credits, you job is not as stable anymore and the credit cards are empty. What do you do? Give it a few more months and you will end up being called by various agencies to deal with your debts.

This is when a collection agency steps in. Such an agency is usually under a tight contract of collaboration with specific banks and has the simple purpose of gaining back as much money as it can from the customers with large debts. It will start hunting you one way or another. In the best case, you will be contacted by an agent willing to work out a plan with you for your debts to be paid. A proper accounts receivable management agent is exactly what you need. As a regular customer, coming up with a proper financial plan may not be such an efficient method to deal with the debts, especially if you are not very experienced. An agent can help you out, present you your possibilities and help you make an informed decision.

Posted By: Future Finance Solutions