The Sun’s Financial Diary

If you have a good credit score, then you won’t need these credit cards because the Orchard Bank Classic MasterCard credit cards are for those who have poor credit but are hoping to improve their credit by using a credit card that fits their credit profile. The Orchard Bank Classic MasterCards, coming with four different [...]

A little over a year ago, the TrueEarnings Card from American Express and Costco started to offer 3% cashback on gasoline purchases with no limit on how much rebate on gas a cardholder can earn. It seemed to be a pretty good deal back then when gas prices were still on the rise. With gas [...]

Last week, when I was writing the article on reward checking accounts, I noticed that some banks not only require a number of debit card transactions in a month in order to get the higher yield, but also explicitly say qualifying transactions must be PIN (personal identification number) based, while others insist only signature based [...]

This could be a hot credit card.
Citibank launched a brand new credit card today, called Forward Visa Card, which the bank claims will “help you see rewards of maintain healthy credit.” After a quick glance, it does seem to be a very rewarding card because card member will not only enjoy rewards (in ThankYou Points) [...]

SmartMoney yesterday published an article on 10 practices that credit card companies use to get more money out of us, their customers. Even though some of them, such as universal default and two-cycle billing, will be banned when the new credit card rules take effect, which is still more than a year away, we should [...]

Credit card issuers are getting more and more proactive in dealing with credit card holders these days. They want to protect themselves against default by increasing APRs on credit cards for some card members, then closing inactive cards without any warning. Now they will just give you cash to close your accounts, whether they are [...]

And it could be the end of my credit card arbitrage game.
I applied and was approved for a Citi Driver’s Edge card in early 2008. The reason for me to get that card wasn’t for the rewards it offers, but solely for the purpose of getting an interest free loan from the card and using [...]

Discover is offering a new travel rewards credit card, the Escape Card by Discover, with 25,000 bonus miles. The new Escape card has some very attractive features for people who not only travels a lot but also want to earn rewards faster. The card rewards card members with Double Miles for every dollar you [...]

Yes, that sounds unbelievable (I thought only payment history, utilization ratio, credit length, etc, determine credit score), but it could actually happen.
Watch this video on Good Morning America yesterday first if you missed the show on TV.

Kevin Johnson, who, at 29 years old, is the CEO of a PR firm in Atlanta and has an [...]

When the RevolutionCard was first introduced in September 2007, I took a look at the card’s advertised features, which include PIN based transactions, but didn’t really feel how that measure can prevent fraud. I prefer signing the transaction to using a PIN, even though almost nobody actually checks the signature. Still, I want a *proof* [...]