A bad credit rating is sure to have negative consequences in a number of fields. For instance, you will be charged a higher interest rate when taking a loan since the institution giving you credit will always fear non-repayment. If you wish to take any insurance, your bad credit history will discourage the insurer and hence will charge you a higher premium amount to secure against any default payments. Also, if you wish to apply for a job in the financial industry, then there are high chances for the job to get disapproved if your credit score doesn’t meet the requirements of the job.

In a recent development that should please a number of people and businesses, Cybersource and NetSuite have finally decided to join hands and hence integrate their companies and specializations to help fight the ever rising online card frauds, especially for e-commerce organisations. NetSuite is known for its ordering and financial tracking services, while CyberSource is known to specialize in fraud management solutions. Hence a merger of these two companies should really benefit the customers and businesses as the two companies believe that if integrated into an organization’s network, their solutions can now screen orders against 200 common fraud detections.

MasterCard has recently expanded its operations in the global prepaid debit card market by acquiring the debit card management unit of Travelex. Travelex is commonly known to frequent travelers as it has been running successful currency conversion units in airports across the globe. Travelex came out with the concept of a stored value debit card to ease the consumer’s hassle of paying for exchange expenses during their trips abroad. Since these cards have started gathering quite a lot of interest from consumers, MasterCard has acquired the business and plans to build on this base and expand their reach through online and retail channels.

There are a number of so-called secrets that you could try to make your card more useful. One such secret is that it is in fact possible to negotiate your interests for certain cards. Your issuer will probably never tell you this, but it is something you could keep in mind and try it in the future. Hence it is advisable to contact your issuer and ask for the rate to be lowered. If your credit track record isn’t too good, and you have been late in paying off your balances in recent times, then unlikely the issuer will agree to negotiate, however it is always worth a try!

There are times when the due date for your balance payments is arriving and hence causing you a lot of stress. However, what a lot of consumers do not know is that you can ask your issuer for a different due date. Yes, you can actually request for this. For example, if your due date lies in the beginning of the month, but you get your salary only towards the latter part of the month, you could ask the issuer to move your due date to the 3rd or 4th week of the month. Issuers might not always agree to do so, but there surely have been instances when they have.

Financial Contributor Vera Gibbons spoke with Maggie Rodriguez about secret credit card company rate hikes.
Video Rating: 4 / 5