| STAR Ohio fund safe, treasurer says
State Treasurer Richard Cordray is sending a letter to about 1,600 Ohio counties, school districts, townships and cities, assuring them that the $6.1 billion STAR Ohio fund has no investments in the mortgage-backed securities that have led to billions in write-downs and losses for major banks and hedge funds. The letter was prompted by a Bloomberg report this week warning that "state-run pools have parked taxpayers' money in some of the most confusing, opaque and illiquid debt investments ever devised." Cordray's letter says, "We are careful and conservative on your behalf, and our solid returns are not risk-laden like some of these other local government investment pools that we are now reading about around the country." Florida's $27 billion investment pool -- which, like STAR Ohio, was designed to offer a safe, liquid place for school districts and municipalities to park tax dollars until needed -- had invested about $2 billion in short-term loans to "structured investment vehicles." Those funds took the short-term loans and bought packages of subprime mortgages, of which about $725 million worth have already defaulted.
Credit card debt balance up marginally
Australia's credit card balances rose by 0.03 per cent in September, Reserve Bank of Australia figures released on Thursday showed. The total balance of credit and charge card transactions climbed to $41.156 billion, from $41.143 billion in August. Total repayments fell by 9.3 per cent to $16.444 billion in September, from $18.135 billion. The number of credit and charge accounts jumped to 13.75 million in September, from 13.72 million. But the number of purchases using credit cards fell to 10.50 million in September from 11.39 million in August. By value, credit purchases fell to $15.251 billion in September down from $16.950 billion in August. The number of cash advances on credit and charge cards fell to 2.81 million, from 3.01 million as the value of advances declined to $958 million from $1.07 billion.
Police seek card-cloning suspect
Police in South Gloucestershire have released an image of a suspect in a card-cloning investigation. Officers have been viewing months of CCTV footage taken at a BP service station in Bath Road, Willsbridge. The investigation began last December when customers who had used their credit or debit cards at the garage complained of fraudulent transactions. Motorists found that their cards had been used in various countries including Canada, Egypt and Tunisia. Money withdrawn Police working with the Association of Payment and Clearing Services (APACS) found that more than 200 cards had been used abroad and tens of thousands of pounds had been withdrawn. Officers also recovered a laptop, card readers and till receipts from the garage which have been forensically analysed.
Credit Card Fine Print
If you're thinking of starting up your own credit card company and you'd like to sneak a bunch of unsavory terms and conditions by your customers with few people noticing or objecting, put them in tiny print in a long document that no one will want to read. That's what the big card companies seem to do. .
|
