Credit Card News

Latest figures released by the Reserve Bank have shown that credit card and charge card transactions, including advances have risen by 2 per cent in September.

The Daily Telegraph has obtained internal documents that have revealed that the Commonwealth Bank has increased performance targets by 10 per cent, while Australians are still trying to recover from the global financial crisis and facing a massive rise in interest rates.

The Reserve bank announced on Wednesday that credit cards could be heading the same way as cheques because shoppers are switching to debit cards.

Credit card transactions rose by 3.8 per cent in 2008-09 but use of debit cards rose by 14.7 per cent a recent report showed.

Due to the high withdrawl limits set by the local banks Romanian crime gangs are targeting Australian ATM's for credit card skimming.

Romanian police chief Elias Tudose stated that the gangs had singled out Australia because of the vulnerability of local ATM's and light sentences imposed by the courts.

The latest RBA data has shown that Australians are shifting to debit cards from credit cards when making purchases and that the value of purchases and cash advances on credit and charge cards fell 1.5 per cent to $18.8 billion in August from July.

In a bid to break the market dominance of the Big Four, Citibank and Virgin Money Group in Australia will create new credit cards, retail deposit accounts and mortgages.

So as to avoid getting stung with the $2 transaction fee consumers are going out of their way to avoid using rival bank ATMs.

Because the industry has not made sufficient progress to improve competition in the payments market the Reserve Bank will continue to regulate bank fees levied on credit card and EFTPOS.

Last year in September the RBA called on the banks to develop a more suitable online process to improve the EFTPOS network.

ANZ Bank has unveiled a reloadable prepaid Visa Credit Card for teenagers on MySpace so that they can securely spend their money online.

Loyalty cards are they really worth the bother? Do they really offer genuine benefits or is it just a ploy to get you spending?

Experts say that it depends on how much you use your card and how often you pay your bills.