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About Clear From American Express

In a world of complex credit cards, Americans yearn for simple products without harsh penalties and conditions. In response, many banks have begun offering at least one card without the large menu of fees and penalties that commonly appear on the disclosure statements of their other products. American Express offers its Clear card for those who value simplicity, but still want to earn some credit card rewards.

How This Card Works

For each dollar spent, cardholders will receive one cent in their Automatic Rewards program. This program is extraordinarily simple; cardholders will receive a $25 American Express shopping card for each $2,500 in spending. Additionally, new customers will be offered a 0% introductory APR on purchases for the first 12 months after opening an account. Subsequently, interest on both purchases and balance transfers will be incurred at the standard rates, which are equal to the Prime Rate plus 13.99%, 16.99%, or 18.99%, depending on the applicant’s credit worthiness. T

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Tags: American, American Express

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Seven million rely on credit to meet housing costs

Nearly a million people took out a payday loan to cover their rent or mortgage payments over the past 12 months, according to a poll by a leading homelessness charity.

A YouGov survey carried out on behalf of Shelter found that a total of 7 million people fell back on some form of credit to help meet their housing costs last year as rising living costs and falling incomes put pressure on household budgets.

One in seven of these were forced to take out an expensive payday loan to help keep a roof over their heads. Some payday loan providers charge interest rates with an equivalent APR of over 4,000%.

Payday loans are designed to tide people over until their next payday but can quickly lead to borrowers being sucked into a downward spiral of debt if payments are missed or additional loans taken out to cover payments.

Campbell Robb, Shelter’s chief executive said: “These shocking findings show the extent to which millions of households across the country are desperately struggling to keep their home.

“Turning to short-term payday loans to help pay for the cost of housing is totally unsustainable.  It can quickly lead to debts snowballing out of control and can lead to eviction or repossession and ultimately homelessness.

Shelter said the New Year could bring a risk of homelessness for those struggling with housing costs and urged anybody experiencing problems to seek help.

Housing Minister Grant Shapps said: “The sheer scale of the global slowdown has left many hard-working families struggling to make ends meet. So I’d u

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Tags: Million, Million Rely

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Housing market treads water

Britain’s housing market is “treading water”, according to the Nationwide building society. Prices rose by a slightly better-than-expected 0.4% last month, taking the average price of a house to £165,650 – that’s 0.8% up on a year ago. However, the bulls should not be cracking open the champagne. This week mortgage approvals fell (by 2.6%) for the first time in six months, according to the Bank of England. Howard Archer at IHS Global Insight expects prices to be down 5% by mid-2012 as the market battles rising unemployment, muted earnings growth and low consumer morale.

• A glimmer of light for beleaguered savers this week – according to Moneysupermarket.com, the average interest rate on the top ten easy-access savings accounts has risen over the last 12 months. That’s despite the fact that the Bank of England has held the bank rate at a historic low of 0.5%. The average interest rate (including introductory bonuses) is up 13%, from 2.71% to 3.06%. The best rate on offer is currently from Saffron building society at 3.15% (no bonus element). Watch out if you

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Tags: Housing Market, Water

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Credit cards set to contribute to booming Black Friday weekend

Credit cards set to contribute to booming Black Friday weekend by Peter Andrew

Stand by for a blockbuster Black Friday weekend. Recently, the National Retail Federation (NRF) reported the results of a survey that suggested that half of all Americans (152 million) are planning to make purchases either in-store or online over the three days running from Friday through Sunday. Thats way up on last year, when some 138 million were expected.

Online shopping

How many will venture out and how many will head for their home computers may well depend on the weather and the crowds. Extrapolating from the NRF survey sample, about 74 million are certain to visit stores, while another 77 million say they plan to wait and see how cold it is and how mobbed the malls are.

One thing seems certain, at least according to new research published by comScore on Nov. 23: its going to be a bumper year for online sales.

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Tags: Black Friday, Black Friday Weekend, Friday Weekend, Weekend

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Where Is the Volcker Rule?

Three years ago, a financial crisis threatened to bring down the United States economy and to spread economic disaster around the world. How far have we come in preventing any kind of recurrence? And will the much-discussed Volcker Rule – attempting to limit the risks that big banks can take – play a positive role as we move forward?

Bad loans were the primary cause of the 2007-8 financial debacle. When the full extent of the problems with those loans became apparent, there was a sharp fall in the values of all securities that had been constructed based on the underlying mortgages – and a collapse in the value of related bets that had been made using derivatives.

The damage to the economy became huge because these losses were not dispersed throughout the economy or around the world. Rather, many of the so-called toxic assets were held by the country’s largest banks. Financial institutions that used to lend to consumers and businesses had instead become drawn into various forms of gambling on the booming mortgage market (as well as on commodities, equities and all kinds of derivatives). “Wall S

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