Banks — Page 2

Holiday Bank Cheer and Sunday’s Best

by bigcajunman on December 4, 2011

Another interesting week in the economic world, with the Central Banks propping up the green back, and thus causing an early Santa Rally, and then the Canadian Banks start announcing better than expected profits, adding more coal to the engine, we might end 2011 on a bit of an up tick, but there still is plenty of this year left to really predict. Advent is now in full bloom with lights and preparation for Christmas (Mrs. C8j and I even put out the Christmas wreath).

The year is coming to an end are you ready for 2012? I am very ready, in that I’d like to see 2011 go in the books and be done (just a bit too much for me this year).

On my twitter feed (which I may start slowing down with, since I am not sure I completely feel I am getting much bang for my work from that social media feed), there were many interesting oldie but goody posts:

With Advent beginning last Sunday I figured I’d start with Advent it Begins Again, the season of waiting that is.
With the interesting times I am having with Dell I figured I’d go back to a Student Computer Safety Tip from not that long ago.
My first attempt at a flow chart I did by hand in my post The Cost of Cheques, which outlines that cheques are going to be bloody expensive very soon.
Continuing on about the importance of not standing for what is given I remembered The Answer is Always NO Unless You Ask.
Me being a little silly with Most Top 10 Lists, after my post about Financial Bloggers in general.
I am not being figurative when I say Debt Makes Me Sick, it keeps me awake and it I am sure has shortened my life.

Enjoy the Second Sunday of Advent, and given I missed my video on Saturday, here is a very good 60 Minutes piece on how tablet computers are helping those with Autism speak (in a more cost-effective manner than they have previously).

Previously these types of boxes cost 10′s of thousands of dollars, so this a big step in the right direction.

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Credit Card Consolidation

by bigcajunman on August 17, 2011

At the Banks Not at Home

I noticed a while ago that my Citi Mastercard was going to become a CIBC Mastercard, in the near future. This is interesting as I used to have a CIBC Card, and the Citi Mastercard, was previously CT Mastercard (but when TD bought CT, then Citi bought the CT Mastercard business). Confusing isn’t it (I am surprised I even remember this).

Yesterday I noted that TD is now buying the Canadian Credit Card operations of the Bank of America, so if you have a Bank of America card (MBNA) , it will most likely be turning into a TD Visa card (some time in the future), and TD is putting upwards of $100 Million into this transaction (in purchase price and debt assumed, etc.,).

As a TD Shareholder this is good because it doubles TD’s penetration into the market, but bad because a lot of the MBNA card holders are higher riskfolks as well, but TD says they will be running off about $2Billion worth of customer debt over 2 years because of these risks (which sounds

My Bloated Wallet Might get Smaller with Less Credit Cards

prudent). Whether they are simply going to write off the debt, is not clear to me, but hopefully they will simply close off the accounts after they are paid off (maybe that is being a little too optimistic in most cases). Another option would be to sell the debt to collection agencies (a little more drachonian, but possible as well).

With more consolidation of the credit card business does this mean there is still a lot of money to be made off credit cards? I think the market is telling us that yes there is more money to be made.

I hope this means I will have less credit cards in my wallet, but then again I could fix that one myself by cancelling a few of them myself.

It will be interesting to see if there are more of these kind of credit card consolidations for the Bank side of things.

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Found Money is the Best!

by bigcajunman on March 10, 2011

Buried Treasure

Living in Ottawa you get some interesting stories come up occasionally on the local TV or Radio, but one really caught my eye, because it was about Lost Money, and a utility set up by the Bank of Canada to help you find possibly lost money.

The site is called Unclaimed Balances which consists of a simple to use Search tool, to look up whether you have unclaimed money being held by the Bank of Canada for you.

How is it possible that the Bank of Canada might have money for me? To quote the FAQ on the web site:

Unclaimed bank balances held at the Bank of Canada are exclusively Canadian-dollar deposits in, and negotiable instruments issued by, Canadian banks at locations in Canada.

They can be in the form of deposit accounts, bank drafts, certified cheques, deposit receipts, money orders, or traveller’s cheques.

Unclaimed bank balances are maintained by the Bank of Canada, which acts as custodian on behalf of the owner, when there has been no owner activity in relation to the account for a period of 10 years and when the owner cannot be contacted by the Canadian bank holding that asset.

This astounded me when I first read it, because I assumed most banks simply whittled the bank accounts down with service charges and then “closed” them when they had been zero’ed, but evidently I was mistaken.

The tool itself is easy to use, however, if your name is fairly common like Smith, Jones or Stewart, be prepared to spend a while looking through your search results (or try to make the search very specific).

I have found I have no such lost booty however you might find some long lost money, it take a few minutes but it might be worth something to you?

As a funny side note, when this was first broadcast on CJOH, this web site was inundated with searchers and it crashed many times, but it seems to be much more stable now.

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Sunday Banking and Catsup?

by bigcajunman on February 2, 2011

Here Comes Sunday!

I went in to make an appointment with my TD Branch to do Yet Another RESP Withdrawal (follow the link to learn how much fun the last time was), and noticed a sign near the reception area:

Sunday Banking Starts on Sunday February 13th

So Sunday Banking has come to my neighbourhood. I did check with the young lady in reception, and asked if this was just for RRSP season, and she assured me that, no this is a permanent change and my branch will open at noon until 3:00 PM (or was it 4:00 PM, not sure) on Sundays. The tellers will be open, and I can make appointments for the lucky financial schlubs that have to work on Sunday. I asked her if she knew why this might be the case, and her comment was a demure, “I guess we are just lucky that way”.

Interesting, so now all my impulse banking needs can be dealt with! Huzzah!

Better Catch Up on RRSPs!!!

To cap this fun story off, I noticed sitting on her reception area, was a bottle of Heinz Tomato Sauce. After I had asked about the Sunday Banking, I then asked, what is with the bottle? Her response is a great piece of guerilla marketing by someone:

“… it is to remind you to Ketchup on your RRSP’s this season…”

Her pained smile when she said that gave me a warm happy glow (as a TD Shareholder that is). That is the corniest idea ever, but I really do like that piece of RRSP selling.

Punny I didn’t Laugh

I really do relish the thought that the bank is mustarding this new advertising campaign.

My cat is so happy that our RRSP will be investing in stocks on his behalf. And believe me, the feline is mutual!

Any other horrible money and/or food puns out there?

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Canada’s Balanced Budget (Eventually)

by bigcajunman on December 7, 2010

Might Balance Budget by 2015

Jim Flaherty (Canadian Federal Finance Minister, and the man who spins the Financial Blarney for the Feds) started the Financial Waffling section of the Government End of Year reports, when he said that the plan to have a Balanced Federal Budget for 2015 May or May not succeed. He then went on to say that they may even be able to balance the budget earlier, but they are not sure.

Would you like blueberry syrup on that waffle?

If I had to go to a bank or bankruptcy agent and had such a wishy-washy plan I’d be laughed right out the door, but let us be fair, Canada’s economy is in a very unsure setting right now. There are more jobs, but those were part-time jobs, interest rates are low however inflation is starting to rise, and the Government can’t easily introduce any new big tax for fear of toppling the whole house of cards.

Not enough of these coming into Government

All the talk of government cut backs is fine, but the only way that governments have managed to balance their budgets is by increasing their income (or by off loading costs to other government levels). If Canadians remain unemployed, or with lower incomes, the major source of income for the government (i.e. taxes) will remain at lower levels.

Government cuts are fine and dandy, and many claims can be made, however, cuts in spending are usually on the backs of those who can’t afford to lose services, and are very unpopular generally, so any alleged austerity measures I think are simply smoke and mirrors to mask the fact that the Government needs more income!

Remember it was not that long ago that Canada was actually paying it’s debt down, and was running surpluses, so it just shows how fragile government income levels are, and that all governments can find ways to over-spend quickly, if they are in a surplus situation (my opinion is that it was a combination of both that destroyed all surpluses).

Maybe the government can start buying lottery tickets?

My other guess (opinion) is this is another piece of financial slight of hand by the Finance Minister to then deliver a balanced budget earlier and give himself whiplash by patting himself on the back so vociferously. If Canadian jobs can recover, and inflation can stay down for a while longer (thus keeping interest rates down), Canada may be able to balance their books soon, but given how sick the U.S. economy is currently, that may be only a pipe dream.

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