payments | Focus on Personal Finance, 7e

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Newcomer Money Guides

Posted on February 27, 2016 by Melissa Hart

While beneficiary, collateral, and fair market value are familiar to many, these terms can be especially confusing to those with limited English-language skills. In an attempt to assist various people, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has created the Newcomer’s Guides to Managing Money to provide recent immigrants with information about basic money decisions. These guides offer brief suggestions to those who are new to the U.S. banking system. The guides also include guidance for submitting and resolving problems with a financial product or service.

The Newcomer Guides include these topics:

Ways to receive your money, comparing cash, check, direct deposit, and debit cards.
Checklist for opening an account, to assist with starting a bank or credit union account.
Ways to pay your bills, providing guidance on whether to pay by check, debit card, credit card, or online.
Selecting financial products and services, providing assistance on deciding which financial services are right for various household situations.

Print copies of the guides can be ordered or downloaded. These publications are available to English and Spanish with additional languages to be offered in the future.

For additional information on money guides for newcomers:

Article #1
Article #2
Article #3

Teaching Suggestions

Have students ask people to create a list of financial planning terms that people find confusing.
Have students suggest methods to have people learn about confusing financial planning terms.

Discussion Questions

What financial problems might be encountered by people with limited English-language skills?
What actions might be taken to assist various groups to better understand banking services and money management activities?

Categories: Bank Fees, Budget, Chapter 2, Chapter 4, Credit Cards, Debit Cards, Debt, Financial Services, Savings | Tags: financial services, payments, wise money management | Leave a comment

Prepaid Industry Scorecard

Posted on March 18, 2015 by Melissa Hart

Millions of consumers use prepaid cards for spending, saving, and managing their money. Card issuers offer diverse products to meet the needs of users and prepaid cards vary immensely across the industry. Such diversity is beneficial to consumers, provided that the overall quality of products is high and that providers continually strive to meet the needs of consumers.

At the same time, it is important at this point in the industry’s development to take stock of the quality of products in the marketplace and to encourage prepaid card issuers to pursue policies that actively improve consumers’ financial lives. Drawing upon the framework of CFSI’s Compass Principles and the definitions of quality articulated in the Compass Guide to Prepaid, this report assesses the level of quality in the current prepaid card marketplace and provides a set of benchmarks against which future progress can be measured.

Eighteen General Purpose Reloadable (GPR) cards are analyzed in this report. These cards collectively represent approximately 90% of the total GPR card marketplace and include the largest players in the industry, as well as a sampling of smaller programs with particularly innovative cards. To develop scores for the industry as a whole, these eighteen cards were assessed against the recommendations outlined in the Compass Guide to Prepaid. Quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis were employed to generate scores that accurately capture the quality of products in the prepaid card marketplace.

For additional information on the Prepaid Card Industry Scorecard, click here:

Teaching Suggestions

Have students research various fees associated with prepaid debit cards.
Have students create a short video that communicates actions to avoid fees for prepaid debit cards.

Discussion Questions