Obama’s stimulus money has been offered to credit card issuers, financial institutions and big time lenders. How will it help you get rid of your debts? The money has been provided under the implicit understanding that the credit card issuers shall provide a fair deal to their customers. Further, Obama’s stimulus has created an environment where credit card issuers stand to gain more by getting rid of those borrowers who are not in a position to pay their debts on time. Rather than initiating litigation or pushing them towards bankruptcy, the stimulus money is used to simply get rid of debts by offering big discounts.

Riding on the confidence that Obama’s stimulus money has provided to the economy, credit card issuers are taking up those debts above ten thousand dollars and due for many months. The issuers are offering a waiver of up to 50% to 60% of the debt amount. This translates into a $4000 repayment on a $10000 loan. Such settlements were common in the past as well. However, creditors are not just ready to offer a waiver but are ready to accept repayment of the remaining amount in installments. This generosity must be credited to the presence of Obama’s stimulus money in the market.

Deal through a debt settlement company and open an escrow account where you will deposit money on a regular basis. You will have to make repayments until the settled loan amount has been cleared. The generous terms of settlement shall be available as long as Obama’s stimulus money is circulating in the market. Once the economy improves, the government shall withdraw its stimulus plan. Once the issuers lose the support of Obama’s stimulus money, they may not be so keen on providing huge waivers. What is more, once the economy improves and the number of bankruptcies comes down, credit card issuers may not think twice of pushing a borrower towards bankruptcy if they feel this will help them get a full repayment. As on date, taking such a risk is neither feasible, nor advisable for credit card issuers.

If you are currently experiencing short term cash flow problems and are in need of quick cash then you will obviously want to get the best deal. I would strongly discourage you from going directly to a particular payday lender as you never really know if you are getting the best rate. Instead, the most efficient way to receive multiple quotes and get the best deal on your short term loan, is to utilize a multiple lender website that is affiliated with several payday lending companies. These websites will make the payday loan companies compete over your loan and therefore you are able to choose the one that was able to offer you the best deal. Going through a multiple lender website will save you time and money and they have consistently offered consumers the best market rate available. They are free to use and are by far the most convenient method to get quick cash.

Credit card use is on the decline, as millions of Americans cut up their plastic or get cut off by their credit card companies.

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November 30, 2010, Alexandria, Va. – The December closed meeting of the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) Board has been rescheduled from December 16 to December 17 at 9 a.m.

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Beirut, Lebanon David Rosenberg – Investors, businesses and consumers are signaling growing fears that Lebanon’s surging economy is imperiled by the threat of a conflict between Hizbullah and the country’s pro-Western government over the investigation into former Prime Minster Rafik Hariri’s 2005 assassination.

Official figures show the economy is on track for another year of strong growth, but many economists say the data doesn’t capture the nervousness that has developed since last summer when reports began circulating that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) would indict Hizbullah officials for the killing. Hizbullah has regularly issued warnings that indictments could lead to “instability.”

“Our indicator of consumer confidence has been declining since July on worries about the political outlook,” Nassib Ghobril, chief economist at Byblos Bank, told The Media Line. “We know there are some companies that had expansion plans but are now taking a wait-and-see approach. There’s been a decline in the stock market since the summer, which has reflected political sentiment more than underlying performance.”

Since Lebanon emerged from a 2008 political deadlock that brought it close to civil war, gross domestic product has expanded an average of 9 percent a year, led by booming tourism and construction sectors and inflows of capital from abroad. Merrill Lynch revised upwards its growth forecast to 8 percent in 2010 and 5.9 percent next year.

“Economic activity seems to have slowed down relatively in August-September,” Merrill said in a Nov. 17 report. “While this slowdown can partially be attributed to Ramadan, increased concerns on politics might have been at play as well.”

Byblos Bank expects GDP to show annualized growth of 4 percent for the second half of this year, half the pace it expanded in the first half amid growing uncertainty over the country’s future. Merrill warned of “volatility” in Lebanon before an agreement is brokered between the two sides by outside governments, Merrill said. “Should it remain contained, politics and economics can conveniently diverge,” it added.

Political analysts have warned that a standoff between the ruling March 14 coalition and Hizbullah over how to respond to the expected STL indictments could lead to the collapse of the government and violent conflict. Al-Akhbar, a Beirut daily close to Hizbullah, reported Tuesday that the group will act on plans to take over Lebanon if an indictment is issued.

The STL hasn’t said when it will issue indictments, but they are widely expected to act in the next few weeks. The Lebanese Shiite militant organization has more men under arms that the Lebanese army and fought a bitter one-month war with Israel in 2006.

Standard & Poor’s affirmed Lebanon’s B/B credit rating this week, but it warned that the STL indictments could cause Hizbullah to bolt the government. But some economists, such as Marwan Barakat, chief economist at Audi Bank, say Lebanon will be able to weather the current political crisis as it has others.

Lebanon has suffered political traumas on a regular basis that would send other economies reeling, including the 2005 Hariri assassination, war with Israel in 2006 and the 2008 political standoff when Hizbullah briefly dispatched its fighters through Beirut and threatened to bring down the government. On top of that, the economy is weighed down by a debt-to-GDP ratio of close to 140 percent at a time when investors are especially alert to such parameters.

“Recent economic history has shown Lebanon is resilient to such shocks,” Barakat told The Media Line. “If you go back four or five years, the country was able to get out of them. Even during those shocks, we didn’t have outflows of massive capital because of the perception that it will be contained.”

One reason is that Lebanon’s conservative banking industry avoided the lending excesses that led to the global financial crisis and has thus enjoyed an influx of foreign capital from investors, particular expatriate Lebanese. Barakat said inflows reached $20 billion in 2009 and will nearly match that level this year.

Merrill Lynch forecasts that public debt will decline to 133 percent of GDP at the end of 2010 and to 131 percent in 2011.

But even without the threat of violence or political upheaval, S&P and Merrill Lynch both warned that political paralysis that has been created by the STL controversy is blocking progress on key economic reforms. Lebanon’s 2010 budget awaits approval and the 2011 remains blocked as are privatization and other structural reforms. Barakat, however, said he is confident that the economy can manage even if the steps are delayed.

“Definitely it’s important for a country with high debt ratio to go into structural reforms to ensure a soft landing in pubic finance positions, which is vulnerable to the economy,” he said. “Lebanese debt is held by the Lebanese themselves, which avoids the risk of massive exit. And, you have a very high level of reserves at the central bank.”

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Dublin, Ireland, United Kingdom (AHN) – Despite the agreed $105 billion (70 billion pounds) bailout for Ireland, trouble continues to hound Dublin as corporate depositors panicked and withdrew their savings.

The Irish Central Bank admitted Tuesday that major international firms had been withdrawing their deposits from Ireland, which worsened the anxious mood of the market.

The chief investment officer of a major bond manager described Irish banks as bleeding deposits, recalling it was the same phenomenon that happened in Argentina and other emerging economies.

With the bailout, Ireland’s banking sector will be recapitalized, which would place the Allied Irish Banks into state control and the government majority stake in Bank of Ireland. The effect of this would be a mandated increase in capital cushions for the Irish banks from 8 to 12 percent. The move is expected to improve confidence in Ireland’s banking sector and stop the financial hemorrhage.

More than half of the bailout would be used to fund Dublin’s deficit spread over three years, while the remaining balance would be used to recapitalize banks and serve as contingency fund.

Markets are also still shaky that borrowing costs for Portugal and Spain jumped to dangerous levels over fears that European Union leaders are losing political control over the Irish crisis.

On Tuesday, yields on 10-year Portuguese bonds went up to 6.9 percent, which repeats the pattern of what happened to Greece and Ireland before these two nations were capitalized by the EU and the International Monetary Fund.

Spreads on 10-year Spanish bonds also grew to a record of 233 basis points over Bunds, which pushed the yield to 4.87 percent. With this development, Spanish Central Bank Governor Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez called on Madrid to fast track fiscal reforms to convince the market that Spain could put its house in order.

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Dubai, United Arab Emirates Michael Grubb – Dubai International Airport, the largest in the Gulf, is outpacing the world aviation industry’s recovery this year as it capitalizes on its role as a pivot for business travelers arbitraging between a struggling Europe and the burgeoning economies of Asia. But analysts warn that Dubai’s success makes it a likely magnet for new competition.

Traffic through Dubai International rose by close to 16 percent in the first nine months of the year, well ahead of the 12.9 percent average increase in the Asia-Pacific market, making it the world’s fastest growing, according to Airports Council International. The pace of growth for Dubai continued in October, when traffic exceeded 4 million people for the second time ever, Dubai Airports reported Wednesday.

Aviation is a big and thriving business for tiny Dubai, whose economy is otherwise struggling with some $100 billion of real estate debt. Dubai is home to the world’s 14th busiest airport, just behind New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport and ahead of Amsterdam’s Schiphol. The number of people passing through the airport in October alone was equal to more than twice the country’s entire population.

Dubai Airports has ambitious plans for expanding. Annual capacity at Dubai International will grow from 60 million passengers to 75 million next year when it dedicates Concourse 3, the world’s only facility dedicated to servicing the Airbus A380, the largest passenger airliner in the world.

Meanwhile, a second airport, the Al-Maktoum International, is under development next door. Al-Maktoum began cargo operations six months ago and will be opening for passenger travel in March 2011.

Dubai Airports is expecting growth to continue at a strong double-digit rate in 2011, with annual passenger traffic jumping 13.1 percent to 52.2 million from a forecast 46.1 million for all of 2010. Dubai’s flag carrier Emirates is counting on its passenger numbers growing 10 percent next year while the discount carrier Flydubai forecasts its traffic doubling.

“Before the end of the decade passenger numbers will approach 90 million making Dubai International the busiest airport in the world in terms of international passenger traffic,” Paul Griffiths, chief executive officer of Dubai Airports, said last week.

But Dubai’s airports – and its airlines — are vulnerable to emerging competition because it is entirely dependent on funneling passengers from Europe and Asia through its airports and sending them on to their final destinations, he said. The airport has no domestic market and a tiny regional one. Indeed, measured by international traffic alone, Dubai rises in the world airport rankings to No. 6.

“They will have competition, the dynamics will definitely change,” Philip Butterworth-Hayes, lead consultant of the aviation advisory firm PMi Media, told The Media Line. “I would look at Indian airlines in particular. Once you have a strong home market like India, you have the ability to capture traffic.”

Dubai has not only benefited from huge investment in its airport and carriers but also from low costs, the absence of environmental constraints to airport expansion and its strategic location. Demand for Europe-Asian travel has grown as European companies focus sales on the growing economies of China and the rest of Asia while newly wealthy Asians have the disposable income to travel to Europe for holidays. Dubai is about 5,500 kilometers (3,400 miles) from London and 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles) from Shanghai.

Adding to world-class airports, Dubai’s state-owned Emirates airlines has been an aggressive competitor, taking market share from hobbled European rivals by adding capacity – the airline has the biggest fleet of the giant A380s on order – and is keeping fares and costs low.

But India could match many of these assets. Mumbai, the country’s commercial capital is about 7,200 kilometers (4,500 miles) from London and 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles) from Shanghai, on top of being a business and tourism destination in its own right.

As India’s economy grows, demand for domestic air travel for its 1 billion people has also increased. Domestic air traffic in India grew 15 percent in October compared with a year ago to 4.6 million passengers, the government said last week. What the country still lacks to take on Dubai is a competitive airline to service an Indian hub, Griffiths said.

“If you were to have an Emirates-like operation in India, you could make it a major hub,” he said. “But they would also benefit from the presence of a huge domestic market.”

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Ready to Switch Your Credit and debit card Terminal Vendor?

Well there’s one way to respond to that. You have to have a look at the provider you use at the present time and review them. Credit card processing is as competitive as any other company in the modern day world, and it’s essential to maintain a close eye on your current credit and debit card terminal supplier and their competition.

Paying out too much cash?

One of the most essential thing is just how much you’re paying for your debit and credit payment processing. It may well not look high, but as soon as you compare with another provider you may find out that you could make a substantial cost reduction.
Many of the most notable merchant card processing providers have increased their prices for receiving your credit and debit card payments; without a doubt many of you will have noticed these rises already. What you need to definitely understand is that it is not costing them any more to supply you the degree of support you’ve been receiving to date, so there is not any other good reason to raise your merchant costs apart from the fact that they are looking to raise their profits at your expense.

What you preferably need is the lowest cost debit and credit card processing around, with capped merchant fees so you won’t see an increase in your debit and credit payment processing. This isn’t a lot to ask, and it does exist. If your primary merchant costs have multiplied then now is the best time to change.

What about support?

It’s not all about the money either is it? You will find other areas that are equally as essential. Have you ever been stranded without a credit terminal, not able to take credit cards and debit cards? This really is really a major problem.

You need to make sure that your business operates as efficiently as is feasible and loses as minimal amount of cash as possible when an event like this takes place. You need 24hr support and assistance from your credit and debit card terminal provider, including an immediate replacement or repair when something goes wrong. If you are not receiving this it’s time to switch.

When you have a technical issue with your credit terminal, or just an enquiry, how long are you on the telephone waiting to get things going again? For some small business owners, time away from their customers can cost them a small fortune, and what’s worse is that none of this is necessary.

No debit and credit payment processing provider should keep you waiting on the telephone. If they do then they should employ more call centre staff to answer their phones. In today’s business enterprise world there is no need to suffer long queues for technical support and other enquiries, and no factor at all to have a call centre outside of the UK.If you experience any of this when you need to contact your card processing supplier then it’s time to switch.

Shop around

If you are ready to switch, it’s incredibly crucial to shop around and ask questions based on what you have read until now, before you make a decision about your new merchant support supplier. Remember that they need your enterprise as much as you need their services!

It’s not the holidays until you’ve maxed out your credit card, slurped too much egg nog and watched as enormous mice battle poor Clara. This holiday, St. Louis welcomes the return of no fewer than six

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Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates David Rosenberg – The world got its first look Thursday at Abu Dhabi’s Zayed National Museum when backers unveiled architectural renderings of the dramatic 345,000-square-foot structure comprised of five soaring pavilions that mimic the feathers of a falcon’s wing. The project radiates money and prestige, if not a little but of glamour.

The internationally renowned architect Lord Norman Foster is designing the building and the British Museum is lending its expertise. When it opens in 2014 on Saadiyat Island, a sandy patch 500 meters off the Abu Dhabi coast, it will be only one of several world-class cultural attractions that include branches of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums. A prestige golf course, a St. Regis Hotel and a host of other high-end attractions are also slated. The tab for building all this? About $27 billion.

If the plans for Saadiyat Island ring a familiar bell of over-the-top development, the kind that sent Dubai, Abu Dhabi’s next door emirate soaring and then crashing, economists beg to differ. With substantial oil wealth and the lessons learned from Dubai’s experience, the United Arab Emirate’s rising economic power stands a good chance of steering its way through a breakneck growth agenda dubbed Plan Abu Dhabi 2030.

“After the financial crisis they are shifting from real estate. They know that property development alone is not a sustainable growth model over the next five to 10 years,” Jean-Paul Pigat, head of Middle East and North Africa analysis at Business Monitor International, told The Media Line.

Until Dubai World, a quasi-governmental holding company, asked for more time to pay back investors a year ago, Dubai was riding high on luxury real estate development, offices and malls. The emirate, along with Abu Dhabi one of seven that make up the UAE, is now weighed down by debt that may be as much as $100 billion while the property boom has fizzled. The more conservative Abu Dhabi even helped its high-flying brother with a $20 billion aid package last year.

Abu Dhabi still has six hotels opening in 2011, and the tiny emirate is home to three PGA-standard golf courses. But the focus of economic development is on less glamorous projects, like a $5.7 billion aluminum plant; the development of a healthcare center with help from Johns Hopkins University; the Cleveland Clinic; and a host of energy projects.

Abu Dhabi’s state-owned Advanced Technology Investment Co. has taken a majority stake in the semiconductor maker Globalfoundries, which will build a $6 billion plant near Masdar City employing 1,500 people, Ibrahim Ajami, ATI’s chief executive, said in an interview with the UAE’s The National newspaper last week.

The goal is to derive two thirds of its gross domestic product from things other than oil by 2030.

Abu Dhabi also has the added benefit of holding 9 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves — 98.2 million barrels — and 5 percent of the world’s natural gas. It also has enough land to develop without reclaiming it from the Gulf, Robin Teh, director of valuation and research at the international property agency Chesterton International, wrote in The Gulf Times this week.

“Soon, Dubai is likely to have some competition from its neighbor, Abu Dhabi,” Teh said. “Abu Dhabi is in line to offer a greater variety of retail, leisure and recreational activity than most cities in the [Gulf].”

Giyas Gokkent, head of research at Abu Dhabi National Bank, said he didn’t see competition emerging between the two emirates. Much of what Abu Dhabi is developing, such as its airlines and airports and its aluminum industry, is competing with Europe or other non-Gulf economies, not with Dubai, he told The Media Line.

“We’ll have a rapid rail link between the two areas, and if you come back in 15-20 years time you will find a single cosmopolitan area. There will be a merging between Dubai and Abu Dhabi,” he said. “People will fly to Dubai and say, ‘let’s go visit the Guggenheim in Abu Dhabi today.’ It will be a single destination. In Yas Island, there will be theme parks – it will be like an Orlando for the region.”

If Abu Dhabi does have any competition, it may be coming from Qatar, another Gulf country with substantial energy resources, said Pigat of Business Monitor International. Qatar aims to boost its liquefied natural gas export capacity by 12 percent to 77 million metric tons a year. Eventually, it wants to raise total oil and gas output to five million barrels of oil equivalent per day, from 2.8 million last year.

Vast amounts are already being spent on education and sports initiatives, the arts and property development, including a quixotic bid to host the 2022 World Cup.

“In terms of infrastructure spending and growth, Qatar is star performer in the Gulf,” Pigat said. “There is a competition within Gulf over who will become the major hub of political and economic power in the Gulf. Abu Dhabi is competing with the likes of Qatar and Bahrain.”

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Toronto, Ontario, Canada (AHN) – Bell Canada offered customers Thursday a choice of a $67 rebate in check in 2011 or a $100 credit immediately applicable to the company’s wireless or TV services. The offer complies with an August decision by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications which ordered telecom firms to rebate $311 million to home phone customer who were overcharged.

The offer was made by Bell Senior Vice President for Residential Services Division Steve Bickley in a letter to customers, which he said was limited time offer.

The rebates range from $25 to $90 per customer. The CRTC allowed telecom firms to refund the amount through credits that are larger than cash reimbursement.

Bell said it made the twin offer right before the Christmas holiday season, which is the time that many subscribers decide if they will switch service provider or renew their phone deals.

Bell’s rivals, however, complained that the telecom firm’s offer was an anti-competitive marketing strategy.

Some Bell subscribers have complained that to qualify for the rebate they must be an active Bell home phone account in an urban area by Aug. 31, 2010 – the date the CRTC decision came out. Bell subscribers for years who shifted service providers prior to Aug. 31 do not qualify for partial rebate.

CRTC limited the rebate to current subscribers because tracking older subscribers would make paying the refund complex and costly.

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