The Government has signalled it will put a stop to the controversial practice by the end of 2012 following an investigation by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT).

The OFT had said the fees, often added in the final stages of a transaction, should be blocked for debit cards – but the ban will also extend to credit cards.

Credit card

Most retail sectors will be covered and businesses will still be able to add a small but not excessive charge to cover the cost of a payment method.

Treasury minister Mark Hoban said consumers should be able to see “up front” how much they will have to pay.

“We want consumers to be able to shop around,” he said.

“They have a right to understand the charges they may incur up front and not be hit through a hidden last-minute payment surcharge.”

A European Union ban on businesses including airlines from imposing above-cost surcharges was due to come into force in mid-2014.

But Mr Hoban said the Government was keen to act sooner, saying it was “leading the way in Europe by stopping this practice”.

Consumer champion Which? submitted a ‘super-complaint’ backed by tens of thousands of supporters to the OFT earlier this year.

It claimed debit card surcharges were adding £265,000 a day to the cost of flights.

The OFT found considerable evidence of companies using “drip pricing” practices for surcharges online – adding payment charges to the total price only after consumers have filled in a number of web pages to make their purchase.

Which? finance editor James Daley, who sits on the Sky News Money Panel and has repeatedly called for the changes, welcomed the news but added a note of caution.

“Given that the new regulations won’t come into force for a year, we’d like to see airlines doing the right thing and scrapping charges for paying by debit card immediately,” he told Sky News Online.

“Our fear, however, is that some airlines will wait until the very last minute to make these changes – and some may even increase their charges further in the meantime.

“Since we launched our super-complaint last year, a handful of airlines have already increased their fees for paying by card – or even introduced these charges for the first time.

“We hope that doesn’t happen again now. It’s time for airlines to realise that the game is up for these kind of charges, and they now need to be ready to move to a more transparent pricing system.”

finance.yahoo.com

More than four in ten of us will buy our Christmas presents online between 29 November and 6 December with a third due to spend over £200 on this year’s Christmas gifts – with last year figures showing that more than £1m per minute was spent on Cyber Monday alone.

Cyber Monday

Richard Stables, chief executive at shopping comparison website Kelkoo, said: “Cyber Monday is the most important day in an e-tailers’ calendar. Online retailers can see sales rise by up to 60pc in the six weeks running up to Christmas compared to the rest of the year, and at no time is this more evident than on Manic Monday, when online sales are forecast to peak at £22.4 million per hour.” We look at five sales this weekend.

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.co.uk has launched its Lightning Deals sale, where customers can find huge discounts within a 15 minute window. The sale ends today at 12pm, so act fast to save. Deals today have included Lorraine Pascale’s Baking and Home Cooking Made Easy book set, for just £13.49 compared to the normal price of £38.99 – a savings of 65pc, while a Toshiba 40VL758B 40-inch Widescreen Full HD 1080p LED TV with Freeview HD can be found for just £369.99, down from £666.78 – a discount of 45pc.

Apple

Apple is holding a one-day shopping event where items are discounted by as much as 20pc off. For instance, if you shop before 12am tonight, you can find an iPad 2 for just £368, down £18 from £399 while a Macbook Pro is reduced by £81 to £918.

Asda Direct

Asda Direct has today kicked off a four-day cyber sale with new online exclusive deals every few hours from Friday to Monday. Items on sale have included an Olympus FE-5040 Digital Camera, with regularly retails at £96, for just £65 and the latest Duke Nukem PS3 game for just £39.97, down from £55. Standard delivery is free or items can be picked up in store.

Gap

Gap UK are holding a pre-Christmas 30pc off sale offering a range of reduced summer/autumn pieces and early winter clothing. For items not in the sale, use discount code GAPSAVE30 before Sunday and receive 30pc off. Alternatively, download the voucher on your mobile phone from Vouchercloud to show in store.

Comet

Today is the final day of Comet’s Five-Day Frenzy where shoppers can save as much as 50pc off. Products on offer include Russell Hobbs14597 Filter Coffee Machine for just £29.99, down from £69.99 – a savings of 57pc. While a Samsung UE46D500046″ LED Backlit TV can be found for just £629, down from £729 – saving nearly 15pc.

telegraph.co.uk

As you may have heard, Adobe (ADBE) last week admitted defeat in its long-running battle with Apple (AAPL) over Adobe’s Flash technology. As Apple’s CEO, the late Jobs barred Flash from Apple’s iPhone and other handheld devices and famously wrote an open letter last year explaining why.

Jobs complained that Flash was a buggy, insecure battery hog that wasn’t designed for touch devices like the iPhone and — thanks to the advent of new, more open technologies — had outlived its usefulness. Belatedly, Adobe seems to have come to the same conclusion.

The company announced that after an upcoming update, it would cease development of its Flash player software for mobile gadgets. Instead it plans to focus on HTML5, the same technology that Jobs touted last year.

This is a big retreat for Adobe. The company is abandoning mobile Flash little more than a year after it released it — and after spending years developing it. And the core of its new mobile strategy is a technology that just last year Kevin Lynch, Adobe’s chief technology officer,

said wouldn’t be able to replace Flash “in the foreseeable future.”

I guess we can say unequivocally that Jobs’ foresight was a lot keener than that of the folks at Adobe.

For consumers, this is a welcome move because it should mean that the Web browsing experience on mobile devices is going to get a lot better.

The promise of mobile Flash was that users would have the same Web experience, regardless of whether they were accessing a Web page from a PC, tablet or smartphone.

But the reality of mobile Flash was much different than its promise. Flash-based videos and games are often slow to load on mobile devices. Some of the older Flash content can’t be played in the mobile Flash player. And many Flash-based video websites block access to their content from mobile devices — even if those devices are running Flash. In sum, the experience was much worse than what you’d get on your PC.

I had eagerly anticipated mobile Flash and was disappointed that Apple didn’t include the technology on the iPad. But after playing with mobile Flash, I realized I hadn’t been missing much.

As any iPhone or iPad user knows, you can do plenty of things without Flash. Most Web videos these days can be viewed without a Flash player, and most of the major websites don’t require it. And with all the games available in the iPhone App Store, Apple device owners aren’t missing Flash games.

Adobe’s decision to kill off mobile Flash will push developers to ensure that all websites and content are mobile-friendly.

My biggest quibble with Adobe’s move is that it doesn’t go far enough. I’d like to see Adobe kill Flash on the desktop also.

Flash was a crucial technology during the past decade. While the browser makers were fighting over Web standards and companies like Apple, Microsoft and RealNetworks were battling over how to deliver streaming audio and video, Flash provided something of a lingua franca.

It allowed users to view dynamic Web pages no matter what browser they were running or operating system they were using. It allowed consumers to play games directly within Web pages. And it became a standard way for delivering streaming media, freeing users from worrying about whether they had the right version of QuickTime or Windows Media Player to listen to a Web broadcast.

But the times have passed Flash by. Web standards have become more sophisticated and more widely supported. Developers can now stream video and audio, and offer sophisticated applications and dynamic menus without resorting to Flash.

Meanwhile, the downsides of Flash have become more and more apparent. In short, Jobs was right. In part because of its ubiquity, Flash has become an inviting target for hackers; the software has become one of the biggest security vulnerabilities on PCs.

What’s more frustrating on a daily basis is just how unstable Flash is. Flash crashes my browser nearly every day — and that’s on a Windows machine, where the software is supposedly more robust. Anecdotes from other users indicate my experience is not unique.

In defending Flash from Jobs’ attack last year, Adobe co-founders John Warnock and Charles Geschke painted the dispute as one about freedom, openness and consumer choice. Adobe’s move is a recognition that consumers, platform operators and developers are choosing to flee Flash to embrace an even more open technology and some other important freedoms, such as being liberated from Flash’s crashes and security holes.

So, I’ll be glad to see Flash go away. Somewhere Jobs is saying, “I told you so.”

MercuryNews.com

Prepaid Card

There are some cases when a prepaid card can be worth having.

While customers should heed the warnings from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme that prepaid cards are not protected in the event of a company going bust, there are some cases when a prepaid card can be worth having. Make sure you heed the warnings and do not keep too much money on it – only that which you are willing to spend. But in the following circumstances prepaid cards may help.

1. Travelling abroad

While it is possible to get a credit or debit card that is good value for travelling abroad, many of us are not willing to open a separate current account for a new debit card or are wary of possible interest charges on a credit card. A prepaid card can be a good solution, particularly if you have limited time before your holiday as you can sometimes get them more quickly than debit cards.

Try Fairfx or Caxton for a decent exchange rate. The FairFX prepaid card charges no spending or foreign ‘loading’ fees, and can be topped up for free by debit card or bank transfer. It does charge Eu1.5 for ATM withdrawals. Rival Caxton FX has a slightly worse rate but no ATM fee.

2. Avoiding fees

Ryanair’s Cash Passport might be irritating, but frequent Ryanair fliers would be foolish not to get it. It costs £6 to get, but you get a £6 travel voucher back. It also saves you £12 per person per return flight, which is a hefty amount for any family who uses the budget airline regularly.

telegraph.co.uk

Google Wallet

Google has launched its mobile payments technology, Google Wallet, making it available to the public via an application which can be downloaded from a United States mobile phone network.

Google Wallet is vying to replace credit cards with phones containing a special chip with Near Field Communications (NFC) technology, which can be tapped against readers at cash tills in shops to make payments.

The technology has been on trial in New York and San Francisco since May with around 1000 employees of Google and its partners in the venture, including MasterCard and Macy’s department store.

Any customers of the Sprint network with a Nexus S phone, which runs on Google’s Android operating system, will now be able to download the application so that they can use their phones to make payments. Customers will have to sign up for a Citi MasterCard account or get a Google Prepaid Card.

Google has also announced that it is working with Visa, American Express and Discover cards to make them available on future versions of Google Wallet.

Osama Bedier, vice president of Google payments, announced the launch on the Google blog. He said: “Our goal is to make it possible for you to add all of your payment cards to Google Wallet, so you can say goodbye to even the biggest traditional wallets. This is still just the beginning, and while we’re excited about this first step, we look forward to bringing Google Wallet to more phones in the future.”

The service will be marketed in the United States only, although the pre-paid card will work internationally at launch. The company is working towards a European launch in 2012, and hoping the UK will be its first location outside America.

The technology can be used at any of the 300,000 shops and other outlets in the US and internationally that accept MasterCard PayPass. Transactions require a PIN and that the phone’s screen is turned on, so payments cannot be taken covertly. Google can also disable the Wallet function remotely.

Most cabs in New York have readers, as do Bloomingdales department store, McDonalds, 7-Eleven, Best Buy, Foot Locker, BP, and in the UK Tesco, Boots and Burger King have signed up.

Google will initially focus its marketing and sales efforts on New York and San Francisco, where it would be working with shops to implement its ‘SingleTap’ process. This lets customers redeem vouchers, loyalty card points and make payments with a single tap of the phone.

Google’s next Nexus phone, expected later this year, will also feature the chips needed to run the Wallet.

Bedier joined Google in January 2011 after eight years at the eBay-owned online payments company PayPal – which is suing Google, claiming he took its secrets with him. It is promising demonstrations of its own product at a trade show in October.

Google said at the time: “We respect trade secrets and will defend ourselves against these claims.”

The service is being promoted on YouTube via a video featuring Seinfeld character George Costanza, who poses as its first customer. The character, played by Jason Alexander, was known for his giant wallet, which he famously stuffed with coupons, phone numbers, receipts and notes until one day it exploded.

guardian.co.uk

If you are jetting abroad in the near future and plan to take a credit card with you, then it is important to be prepared and find out how much it will cost to use your plastic overseas.

According to the UK Cards Association, there are a number of steps consumers should take before they leave the country. Firstly, they should only take the cards they intend to use and leave the rest in a secure place at home.

> However, the organisation noted that it is advisable to take at least two cards so that you are not reliant on just one.

You should have your card provider’s contact details with you when you travel, including their 24-hour helpline in case your card is stolen or swallowed by an ATM machine. You should also ensure that your card company has up-to-date contact information for you so they can get in touch if they are concerned that fraudulent activity is taking place on your account.

“If your cards are registered with a Card Protection Agency, ensure you have their contact telephone number and your policy number with you,” the UK Cards Association advises.

Once you are overseas, it is important that you do not let your credit card out of your sight, especially when paying for goods in bars and restaurants. If the waiter wants to take your card away then insist that you follow them and watch the transaction go through.

“Shield your pin with your free hand when typing it into a keypad in a shop or at a cash machine and consider wearing a concealed money belt to keep your cards, cash and traveller’s cheques safe,” the organisation adds.

Once you’re back in the UK, check your statements and contact your card provider if you spot anything suspicious.

One thing you do not want to see on your statement is dozens of transaction charges and purchase fees. As well as keeping your card safe, you should also be aware of how much it costs to use when you are outside of the UK.

According to Sainsbury’s Finance, holidaymakers who want good value for money should opt for a card that does not come with foreign exchange fees.

Stuart McKeggie, head of credit cards at Sainsbury’s, said: “It’s important card users understand exactly how their plastic works for them especially when it comes to rates and fees. Finding out that you’ve paid more than you expected is never a nice feeling particularly on a well-budgeted break. If travellers choose the right credit card, such as our Sainsbury’s Gold Card, they won’t pay foreign exchange or cash advance fees and will benefit from competitive foreign exchange rates.”

UNNetGuide.co.uk

Visa Inc (V.N), the world’s largest credit and debit card processing network, will buy the online payments company PlaySpan Inc for $190 million, continuing to expand its e-commerce and mobile payments businesses.

The cash deal will also include “additional consideration for performance milestones,” Visa said on Wednesday. It is expected to be completed in Visa’s second fiscal quarter of 2011, and will be “slightly dilutive” to the company’s full-year earnings per share.

Visa, like smaller rival MasterCard Inc (MA.N), is increasingly looking online and to new payment processing technology like mobile phone payments for growth. The companies are facing a saturated U.S. market, where most consumers already use credit and debit cards instead of cash, and increasing regulation of their traditional businesses.

The deal is Visa’s second such acquisition in the past year, following its July purchase of the online payment processing company CyberSource.

Privately-held PlaySpan processes transactions for online games and virtual goods sold on social networking websites. It is based in Santa Clara, California, and backed by several venture funds, including Easton Capital, Menlo Ventures, TimeWarner Investments, Vodafone Ventures and GE Asset Management.

Visa shares were down 0.6 percent at $73.97 in early trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

Reuters.com

Feb. 3 (Bloomberg) — MasterCard Inc., the world’s second- biggest bank-card network, said fourth-quarter profit jumped 41 percent as U.S. consumer spending surged and the global migration to electronic payments continued.

Net income climbed to $415 million, or $3.16 a share, from $294 million, or $2.24, in the same period a year earlier, the Purchase, New York-based company said today in a statement. The average estimate of 30 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg was $3.05.

Chief Executive Officer Ajay Banga, who has declared a “war on cash,” is seeking growth in emerging markets through acquisitions. The company paid $526 million in October for DataCash Group Plc, a U.K. credit-card processor, to expand e- commerce offerings. In December, MasterCard said it would buy prepaid card-management assets from London-based Travelex Holdings Ltd. for 290 million pounds ($470 million).

Those investments “will continue to enhance our e- commerce, prepaid and mobile capabilities, positioning us at the forefront of global payments innovation,” Banga, 51, said in the statement.

Net revenue during the three months ended Dec. 31 increased 11 percent to $1.44 billion as operating expenses, adjusted for currency changes, rose 4.6 percent to $869 million, driven by an increase in advertising and marketing spending.

Spending Climbs

Worldwide spending on MasterCard and Maestro-branded cards climbed 11 percent to $567 billion based on local currencies, the company said. Cross-border volume, a measure of spending by consumers traveling outside their home countries, surged 19 percent. Processed transactions advanced 6.3 percent to 6.2 billion.

MasterCard rose $1.24, or 0.5 percent, to $239.39 on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday. It has declined 5 percent in the past year.

Increased consumer spending is fueling growth for MasterCard and larger rival Visa Inc. Household purchases, which account for about 70 percent of the economy, rose at a 4.4 percent pace in the fourth quarter, the most since the first quarter of 2006, according to Commerce Department figures released Jan. 28.

Visa yesterday said fiscal first-quarter net income increased 16 percent to $884 million, as processed transactions and total card spending climbed.

Debit Caps

MasterCard and San Francisco-based Visa are contending with investor concern that U.S. caps on debit-card interchange fees, set to take effect in July, may lead to more regulation and damage their business model.

The Federal Reserve has proposed capping interchange, or “swipe” fees, at 12 cents for each debit-card transaction, replacing a formula that costs merchants about 1 percent of the purchase price. The caps, mandated by the Dodd-Frank law that overhauled the financial industry last year, may reduce annual revenue at U.S. banks by more than $12 billion.

MasterCard and Visa set interchange rates and pass the money to card issuers such as Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America Corp., which estimated that the debit caps may reduce annual revenue by $2.3 billion. The lender said last month that it will charge retail customers checking account fees unless they maintain minimum balances, make regular deposits, use credit cards or take advantage of online services.

BusinessWeek.com

Credit Cards

There are the world’s first alpine goggles, “Transcend” from Recon Instruments, equipped with a display system offering real-time GPS data, including speed, latitude and longitude, vertical distance travelled, temperature, and time.

And then there’s Card 2.0: a credit card bearing the Citi logo with a built-in battery and microprocessor that will change completely how you use your rewards. The technology, developed by Pittsburgh, Penn.-based Dynamics, is so advanced that it earned an Innovations in Design and Engineering award – the first time in CES history that this type of award goes out to a credit card.

We’ve told you about Card 2.0 before. (Citi has actually dubbed it “2G” – as in Citi PremierPass 2G or Citi Dividend 2G.)

Officially launched in beta mode to a limited number of Citi card users In November 2010, it looks just like any other piece of plastic with a magnetic stripe. Except for one revolutionary new feature: two buttons that enable you to choose whether to pay for a purchase with dollars (credit) — or with ThankYou points (rewards).

By the end of the second quarter of this year, the cards will be available to all new, as well as a larger number of existing Citi customers.

But while the technology is, without a doubt, groundbreaking and seriously cool-looking (the card has two little lights, a blue one that activates when you choose to pay with credit and an orange one when you choose to pay with points), the question is, is it really that much better than the good old boring piece of plastic in our wallets?

At CES, we spent some time with Terry O’Neal, executive vice president at Citi Cards, to learn more of the nitty-gritty details – the fine print, if you will — and we’re not entirely convinced that once we get our swanky new Citi PremierPass 2G card later this year we’ll be in a rush use its cool new feature.

Here’s what any savvy consumer should know about this award-winning technology:
1. It makes it easy – perhaps too easy – to spend your rewards

One of Citi’s main goals with this new capability is to make it more convenient for card members to spend ThankYou points.

Yes, redeeming points the traditional way is a bit of a pain: you have to click through an online catalog with hundreds of options before you choose your reward. If you choose a gift card or a piece of merchandise, you’d have to wait for weeks on end to receive it.

With the 2G cards, meanwhile, all you have to do is press the card’s “Request Rewards” button before you swipe or hand it to the sales clerk. Voila: you’re shopping with points instead of credit.

At a penny per point, the redemption rate is actually quite fair. You would spend 10,000 points instead of $100; 2,500 points instead of $25. (Meanwhile, you would need 3,500 points in most cases if you’d like to redeem them for a $25 gift card from Citi’s ThankYou rewards catalog.)

Conceivably, this could help your finances – after all, you’re spending points instead of your hard-earned cash – but it could also make you an impulsive shopper. “I’m not actually spending money,” the thinking goes. “So why not splurge on a $200 pair of shoes.” If you have a hard time controlling yourself in a department store – beware.
2. It’s good for you – and even better for Citi

Let’s assume, though, that you — the epitome of budget consciousness — will treat your ThankYou points the same way you do now. You’ll carefully collect them until you have enough to sponsor your holiday gift shopping or to buy yourself a birthday present, or you’ll spend it at the grocery store on necessities. It will be like nothing has changed, only easier.

That’s great for you, but guess what: it’s even better for Citibank. Because the technology that enables you to shop with rewards also enables Citibank to collect interchange fees on the value of its own rewards program.

Think of it this way: when you redeem rewards the traditional way, for gift cards or cash, Citibank purchases those gift cards or cuts you a check, and that’s the end of it. How, where and when you spend that money – Citibank never knows. But when you use ThankYou points at the register (so-called Point of Sale, or POS), it is processed like any other credit card transaction. Citi collects its interchange fee (that could be anywhere between 1% and 4%, and part of it will also go to Visa or MasterCard), and then processes the payment as a rewards redemption on the back end. You: spent points. Citi: collects a fee. Innovative? You bet.
3. Dinky-dory credit line details

What would happen if you don’t have enough ThankYou points to make the purchase you desire? Glad you asked because this brings up the potentially dicey issue of dipping into your credit line.

All POS reward redemptions are processed as a regular credit transaction on the front end – and adjusted to reward transaction at the back end. In layman’s terms: the cashier will ring you up, a request will go out to Citi and it will at first treat it as if you’ve used your credit card. Purchasing a $3,000 3DTV with points? That’ll be $3,000 deducted from your credit line right there. By the end of the day, the transaction will be processed properly, your ThankYou point balance updated (you’ll be 300,000 points poorer) and $3,000 will be added back to your available credit.

O’Neal says the process was set up this way so people aren’t turned back at the register if they don’t have enough points for a specific purchase. But you see where this is going? If you don’t really have enough points, the transaction won’t be declined. Instead, you will use up however many points there are and the rest will be deducted from your credit limit, so you’ll pay part points and part cash. Oops. And you planned to not spend money.

Another possible issue: what if that original credit adjustment brings you over your credit limit? Will you be charged an over-limit fee even if you’re not using any of your actual credit? O’Neal says that the cards that currently have this functionality – Citi PremierPass and Citi Dividend – do not have credit limits to begin with, so this is kind of a non-issue. But as the bank expands its menu of 2G cards, it is definitely something to keep in mind.

If you think redeeming your points is a pain now, remember: keeping on top of your available credit limits and your ThankYou points balance can be doubly demanding.
4. Creating loyal customers – or frequent spenders?

Finally, a word of caution: banks are, as you well know, for-profit institutions. They do not innovate and introduce new products out of the goodness of their hearts. They do so because they see an opportunity to generate profits.

Citi’s 2G cards may make it more convenient for you to spend your rewards and will definitely give you some bragging rights in front of your friends. But the benefits will be way more tangible for Citi: it will get you to spend your points faster, and may even steer you towards using the card more often, so you accrue more points to spend… and so forth.

“Banks have an interest in getting people to redeem their rewards,” O’Neal says. “It speaks to engagement and creates a more loyal customer.”

If your loyalty can be bought with cool technology and convenience – great. But we suggest you remember the basics: choose a card that offers you the biggest bang for your buck. When given the choice, we’d take the one with the richest rewards structure and lowest APR and fees – any day.

houses

The survey by Shelter shows the drastic measures households are taking to keep a roof over their head amid a sharp rise in the cost of living.

The charity predicted many of these people could be starting the New Year with the threat of homelessness hanging over them.

It warned that not only can defaulting on credit card payments lead to repossession in very severe cases but just one single thing – such a bout of illness, rent increase or drop in income – is all that is needed to push people into spiral of debt and arrears that can lead to the loss of their home.

Campbell Robb, chief executive of Shelter, said: “This research brings into sharp focus how keeping a roof over their head has become a daily struggle for millions across the country.

“This is a totally unsustainable situation and one which we fear could see thousands more families pushed into the spiral of debt, eviction or repossession and ultimately homelessness.

Telegraph.co.uk