For those of you not familiar with what’s happened with the BOPO Prepaid VISA card company and their Parent company Bill Express, The AGE, BusinessDay has an article on the whole Bill Express fiasco.

The Bill Express is said to owe creditors could be more than $250 million. Debt owed to New agencies across Australia has yet to be included in the debt total.

Optus is owed an estimated $50 million from the supply of prepaid recharge codes to Bill Express, with Vodafone owed $30 million, 3 Mobile up to $20 million and $10 million for Telstra, as well as a smaller amount for smaller companies that provide prepaid overseas telephone credit. Bill Express also owes finance company Asset Secure $13 million, German broker Deutsche Forfait $10 million and $7 million for finance of its electronic terminals.

Source: BusinessDay

While big companies are hit hard, those hit hardest are the employees left without redundancy packages or benefits along side Newsagency ownerw who are now forced into unwanted legal action regarding their Bill Express Contracts. Newsagency owners have expressed their opinions on the Bill Express Fall out on a well known blog – newsagencyblog

BOPO Prepaid visa card holders can breath a sigh of relief, based on a press release from Cuscal Website (The Financial Institute that endorsed the BOPO prepaid VISA cards ) Bopo Customer funds are safe.

Below is an excerpt of the 11th July Press release. Read the entire Cuscal press release here.

Bill Express advised the market on 8 July 2008 that it has been forced to appoint administrators. This situation impacts the bopo Visa card, which is issued by Cuscal but owned by Bill Express (through a subsidiary company called bopo cards (Australia) Pty Ltd).

bopo cardholders are right to be concerned about the Bill Express news, however cardholder funds are being kept safe by Cuscal. It is important to highlight that Cuscal is a separate company to Bill Express. Cuscal is a regulated Authorised Deposit-taking Institution (ADI) with a AA- Standard & Poors’ credit rating. This makes Cuscal as safe as any other Australian bank.

Cardholders can be assured that the value stored on bopo cards will be returned to them. However, the administrator now managing Bill Express is following due process and unfortunately this is limiting the services and functionality available to bopo cardholders.

At the time of publication on Friday 11 July 2008, cardholders can still make EFTPOS purchases and ATM withdrawals, but cannot reload money on their cards.

In the event that any cardholders cannot use ATM or EFTPOS purchases to withdraw funds, Cuscal has established a process to facilitate reimbursement of funds stored within bopo card accounts.

Cuscal has offered a chart to help explain how Bopo Cardholders can view card balances and withdraw funds.

View Bopo Card Balance Chart

If your like me, your also one of the thousands of Bopo prepaid card holders left in cold, wondering what’s happening with the available funds within their Bopo prepaid accounts.

As of last week BOPO and all of it’s associated companies are under appointment of an Administrator or in the process of being sold.

From what I’ve gathered online, many Bopo prepaid customers are unable to get in contact with BOPO customer support, this is due to the company being forced into administration. Comments from the Newagencyblog have indicated that BOPO call center staff were let go last Tuesday.

Financial Institiute Cuscal, which handles Authorised Deposit-taking from BOPO has stated that they will provide support for BOPO customers.

Cuscal will work towards meeting its obligations to current bopo cardholders, including of course, ensuring cardholders receive their money. However, the future of the bopo product is likely to be limited. Cuscal has noted that decisions taken by the administrator demonstrate an intention to rapidly cease operational support for the bopo card product.

I suggest those of you with available funds to look into withdrawing funds immediately. I only have very limited funds in my account, grand total of $5 (I think). I’ll be withdrawing mine tomorrow… guess who’s getting a happy meal tomorrow.

If you suddenly need to make payments and can find the funds for them, then you should consider applying for a loan. What type of loan, you ask? Well that depends on what your current financial needs are. Don’t worry, these kinds of loans are easy to understand, and you can find tons of info on them online. For starters, here are three types of loans:

For example, if you are hoping to close in on that house purchase you’ve always wanted to do, you can opt to get a loan under home equity line of credit. In this manner, you will use your house as collateral, and a certain percentage of the appraised value of the house may be obtained through a loan. All you need to do is determine a loan term and be religious in paying your monthly dues.

However, in times when you need to wipe out your credit card debts and other payable, you need to get into a debt consolidation program. In this kind of loan, you borrow an amount that can pay off all your debts, leaving you with one debt payable to only one lender. This is a welcome option if you want to repair your credit. Take note that this type of loan is subject to many requirements, so you need to be well informed before you apply for one.

Lastly, if you find yourself stuck in a financial rut, and you need to make payments in the soonest time possible, such as for car repairs, home repairs, or medical expenses, you can get a cash advance loan instead. This way, you can borrow an amount that you can pay off on your next payday. Online payday loans are ideal when you have emergency payments that need to be taken care of.

I’m not sure about you guys but if your like me who writes on multiple blogs, you tend to become more Dependant on external services like web hosting companies.

Like many bloggers online who spend hours and hours fine tuning their personal or professional blogs and websites. Developing engaging content to keep visitors entertained and amused. We tend to glance over these technical issues like web hosting and adopt a “it’ll be fine for now” attitude. But if it the content that brings these visitors the website should be protecting it?

What happens when your web servers crash and all the hard work is lost because you decided earlier on to save a few dollars per month on hosting.

The reality is many bloggers out there aren’t protecting their most valuable assests, their time and content. While a 2 dollar hosting plan may seem like s a sweet deal, your missing out on some great features like daily backups and load balancing.

When considering a hosting package you really need to compare features with other web hosting services online to find the best deal.

Identifying the best web hosting, can be an overwhelming task, I recommend searching Google for “compare web hosting” which should provide you with a variety of web hosting comparison services that allow you to compare hosting features and prices.

Another non-bank moves into the banking arena after retailer Woolworths signed a deal with HSBC to issue the Woolworths’ credit card, due for release later this year.

The deal was a result of a global tender process undertaken by Woolworths’ financial services team last year.

“HSBC is a global leader in credit cards with world class technology and expertise,” Michael Luscombe, Woolworths’ CEO, said.

HSBC has long-term successful partnerships with large retailer card programs overseas, such as, Marks & Spencer’s in the UK and Saks in the USA.

“HSBC manages over 125 million credit cards worldwide, with established co-branded and white label alliances with over 100 of the world’s most respected companies, “ Stuart Davis, chief executive of HSBC Bank Australia, said.

Luscombe noted, “HSBC’s experience makes it a perfect partner for Woolworths to leverage our unique distribution reach and customer base in Australia.”

Woolworths stores process 114 million transactions or 11 per cent of all credit card transactions in Australia each year.

The companies are expected to sign a formal agreement by the end of first quarter 2008.

source [Full article here]

The new David Jones American Express card will be launched in time to capitalize on the busy Christmas trading period, which last year generated sales of about A$36 billion.

David Jones’ financial services business will deliver at least 7.5 percent earnings before interest and tax growth (EBIT) a year over fiscal year 2008, it said in the statement.

More on the David Jones Credit Card

Running an online blog can be very liberating and cathartic experience but at the same time it be very frustrating when having to deal with web hosting and domain registration issues, more so if you have your blog or website hosted overseas.

If your not so tech savvy, its a good rule of thumb to select a web hosting provider or domain registra that be available to your beck and call in your timezone. Last thing you need are issues that can be resolved or priority accelerated after a simple call drag on for days as emails fly back and forth through there ticketing system.

Unlike webhosting, the domain registration process usually is a fairly simple process where even non tech savvy bloggers like myself can feel like professional at the end of registering a domain. You won’t need to have a web hosting plan to register your domain name, it’s usually a good idea to register the domain first as there may be other people looking to register the same domain as you.

Once you’ve developed enough content for your blog then you should start to consider your webhosting package.

It’s looking bad for over 350,ooo Victorians who are juggling more than 3 credit card or charge cards at the same time. Finance counselors are seeing people who can’t afford to pay off their credit cards debts by taking out more credit cards to pay off the debt of the initial credit card and subsequent cards.

” It’s not unusual for people we see to have six or more credit cards.” – Jan Pentland : Australian Financial Counselling and Credit Reform Association.

read more

Borrowers should be wary of banks seeking to recover the higher cost of credit due to the global credit crunch over coming months. Total personal lending and credit card debt rose by 13.2 per cent over the past year to $151 billion. Some credit card and fixed loan rates have already headed north and the big banks issued warnings over the closing months of 2007 that there would be more to come. Markets are also tipping that there is a strong possibility of an increase in the official cash rate when the Reserve banks meets again at the beginning of February. With Bendigo Bank’s variable home loan rate already at 8.60 per cent compared with a standard rate of 8.57 per cent it will pay for consumers to shop around for the best rates.

By News.com.au