Alright, let's dive into the plastic fantastic world of credit cards! These little rectangles can make or break your finances, so getting savvy with them is key. We're here to level up your credit card game with some killer strategies.
Buckle up for five top-tier tips and tricks that'll turn you into a credit card ninja in no time!
#1 - Master the Reward Points Hustle
Time to get those reward points working overtime! Choosing a credit card that gives back every time you swipe is like hitting the jackpot on your everyday buys – whether it's cashback, travel miles, or merchandise points.
Keep an eye out for sign-up bonuses and special category earnings—sometimes they're generous enough to fund a mini getaway or slash your holiday gift expenses.
Just remember the cardinal rule: don't spend extra just to score points. That way lies madness and a maxed-out card. Be wise, capitalise on what you'd normally buy, and watch those perks pile up!
#2 - Choose a Credit Card with the Perks You Need
Not all credit cards are created equal. It's like picking out the perfect toppings for your pizza – you’ve got to select what suits your taste. So, look for a card with benefits that match your lifestyle.
Are you always on the go? A travel rewards card can get you lounge access and free luggage check-ins.
More of a homebody? Then cashback on groceries and streaming services might be right up your alley.
Do you spend a lot on gas and groceries? In that case, the AT&T Points Plus card from Citi could be the ideal credit card for you.
The main idea is to snag that plastic that plays nice with how you live and spend, turning every swipe into value—just ensure those annual fees don't eat into the benefits pie!
#3 - Clear Your Balance Without a Sting
The trick to keeping your credit card from biting back is simple: pay off that balance like it's hot – because honestly, it is. Don't let the interest pile up; make full payments before the due date rolls around.
Think of it as defusing a ticking debt bomb each month. Automate those payments if you can; that way, you'll never miss a beat or get hit with late fees. It keeps your credit score looking shiny and reduces stress knowing you're not collecting financial dust bunnies under your fiscal bed.
Keep your debt low and your creditworthiness high—that's how you play the long game right!
#4 - Adopt the 30% Rule
Here’s a nugget of credit wisdom to chew on – keep your card balance under 30% of your credit limit. It's lovingly known as the credit utilization ratio, and it's a big deal in the eyes of lenders.
By sticking below this threshold, you show that you're not just another spendthrift and that you maintain a healthier credit score. This isn’t just for show, either; it gives you breathing room for unexpected expenses without maxing out your card.
Monitoring this ratio is like keeping an eye on your financial fuel gauge — too high and you risk stalling your credit health, too low and you might not be leveraging your available credit effectively. So, keep it balanced for smooth financial cruising!
#5 - Harness the Power of Purchase Protection
Lastly, lean in for a little-known card trick—many credit cards come strapped with purchase protection that's like a stealthy financial bodyguard. This nifty feature can protect you against theft or damage on new purchases for a spell after you've bought them.
Dropped your new phone? No sweat if it's within the policy's time frame.
Before you shop, scope out cards offering this perk and understand their coverage limits and claim processes—it varies from ninja to sensei level among issuers.
Use it wisely though; while it’s a handy backup, don't let it encourage reckless spending on items under the guise of protection.
With the biometrics market expected to be worth $18.6 billion by 2026, the potential for this technology is huge.
However, opponents point out that while the convenience of waving a hand or smiling at a camera has potential, there are still big risks if the technology goes wrong – foremost among them are concerns over privacy, security and cost.
Face not recognised, please unlock with pin
While facial recognition has improved over the last few years, there are still errors. For instance, we are all familiar with those frustrating moments when our phones do not recognise our faces for some reason, requiring a PIN to open instead. While this is a minor inconvenience to get access to a text message, when it comes to paying a bill, it could cause huge problems.
Error rates are now less than 0.1%, an impressively low number, but when partnered with the millions of transactions that happen every day that is still hundreds, if not thousands, of moments where biometric authentication could fail.
To reduce the chance of failure, companies will need to have access to several different forms of authentication, such as fingerprints, vein patterns, iris scanning, facial recognition and more. While reducing the risk of errors and fraud, each system has its own accuracy rates and problems that firms need to be aware of. For example, facial recognition can sometimes be thrown off by glare from glasses, and vein pattern relies on high-quality photos in the first instance and ensuring that subsequent scans are not affected by different light conditions.
You can’t change who you are
The trade-off in ensuring success for biometric payments is that companies will have to store more personal data of their customers. This is fundamental to how the technology operates and will reduce the chances of errors, but it also raises the stakes for the company holding the data.
For instance, while a data breach today may result in passwords and usernames being leaked, this information can be changed and updated relatively quickly and easily. Biometric data is much harder to change, and although the processes of using that data may be harder, the rewards are greater – where people might have different passwords for various systems, biometric data would in theory give access to any account where this information is used as a means of entry. Securing these databases is essential.
As well as security concerns, consumers may be reluctant to share such sensitive information with large companies, with ongoing questions around privacy and rights on how those companies use the data of their users. For example, in countries with less protection for individual rights, such as China, a facial database could be used to identify and target certain groups of people by the state authorities, as has already been seen with the Uighur people. If the public becomes distrustful and refuses to share information with payment firms, any biometric technology beyond just unlocking a smartphone will struggle to get off the ground in a meaningful way.
If this is to be overcome, it will be essential for firms and governments to work together to improve regulations and processes. This will help build trust in the new technology, and create conformity across countries on how data should be handled and secured. Firms in turn will benefit from being able to focus on one set of rules, in the knowledge that the rights of people in different locations are being protected.
Who is paying for this all?
Any deployment of new technology comes with a cost. In this case, it will require new devices that can read biometric information to be installed in every shop, restaurant and hospitality location, potentially costing billions.
At the moment some high-end biometric systems can cost up to $10,000, a significant cost if you run a small business. After all, it is not the kind of investment that can justify itself through additional business – payments can still be made by other means. It needs consumer behaviour and expectation to reach a point of critical mass where biometric payment becomes expected rather than a novelty. But until the technology reaches an affordable price where it is feasible for businesses to make this investment, there is no way for it to enjoy widespread adoption. It's a ‘chicken and egg’ situation – one of widespread availability and mainstream adoption will drive the other but if neither comes first, biometric payments will continue to struggle.
There is no doubt that schemes like Mastercard’s are going to start happening more frequently, and likely do offer a snapshot of what the future of payments will look like. It is also not as much of a leap in technology as some people believe. For instance, platforms such as Apple Pay already use facial recognition to authorise payments. Bringing in other forms of Biometric payments will remove friction from the authentication process, and no doubt when the technology is ready, customers will love it if it is user friendly enough.
However, we are still a distance away from this becoming a mainstream form of transaction. A lot of work needs to be done to reduce the cost of the technology itself so that everyday businesses can afford it, while serious conversations need to take place to ensure regulations are in place to protect individuals’ data and rights. Otherwise, it will struggle ever to be a viable option.
About the author: Ashish Bhatnagar is Client Partner at Cognizant.
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How To Boost Your Employees Productivity And Connectivity
Companies take several steps to increase their productivity and connectivity. However, only a few of them have been successful. Let us take a look at some smart ideas that help improve employees' productivity and connectivity.
Open Communication
Employees always want to feel valued and appreciated. Open communication between employers and employees is the first step towards achieving this. The company must set up several platforms that allow employees to directly communicate their views to the management. There are several ways by which this can be done, one of them being setting up an anonymous suggestion box where staff members are free to submit an idea or opinion they have regarding work-related issues. TeamSense, a Fortune 500 industrial technology company, fully acquired by Fortive, uses brilliant products and services that connect your workforce and help you work more productively. Through its scientifically proven, cloud-based technology platform built on real science, Fortive's TeamSense helps companies drive accountability and engagement across their global workforce.
Another way of promoting open communication is by holding regular town halls where staff members can directly pose their queries or ask any question they might have in mind. This will create a more relaxed environment and help staff members build stronger relationships with employers.
Handling Distractions
Distractions from work are something that every employee suffers from. It ranges from gossiping with co-workers to checking out social media accounts or even just getting up for a cup of coffee. These little distractions might seem harmless, but they do have a very negative impact on employees' productivity and concentration levels. The best way to handle these distractions is to instil a strict no-distraction policy at your workplace, which applies to all staff members. You can even go one step further and implement a reward system where staff members get awarded for completing their work without any distraction.
The company can also put a rule where employees cannot use their mobile phones or check social media during office hours. You can even implement a cell phone policy where you ban mobile phones from 8 am to 5 pm. This will give them quality time with family and friends post-work hours, which is beneficial for both employees and employers.
Structure Of Working Space
Another important factor that influences the productivity of your employees is the structure of their workspace. A workplace where employees are exposed to distractions throughout the day will harm their concentration and the number of hours they put in for work. A study was taken up by an Australian research company on this matter and clearly shows how open spaces such as coffee shops, libraries and even common rooms affect employees' productivity. This is why it is of utmost importance that you allocate proper space to each employee to work comfortably without being exposed to distractions.
Taking Breaks
Employees are not machines who can work continuously for 7-8 hours non-stop without any distraction or break. They require breaks between their work, which will help them re-energise and put in maximum effort when they resume their task. These little breaks also reduce the chances of employees getting stressed out. For instance, a study conducted by an online news agency shows that employees who take five minute breaks every hour are 46% more productive than those who do not take any breaks at all. Productivity is directly proportional to the number of hours employees put in for work. Employees must be given tasks according to their abilities, and more importantly, they must be able to complete the task with full efficiency and satisfaction.
Encouraging Teamwork
Working in a team will increase your productivity because you will draw inspiration from your co-workers. One way of increasing teamwork is by increasing the physical interaction between employees. The company should organise activities that encourage face to face interactions between employees. Such activities do not have to be related to work at all. They can be as simple as organising a picnic or a potluck dinner where everyone brings something different. This will enhance team-building and increase productivity levels because ideas are exchanged easily in such an environment, which leads to increased creativity among staff members.
Offering Rewards
Rewards do not mean money or time off. Employees who are appreciated for their work will put in extra effort to reciprocate that appreciation. There are several ways through which this can be done, one of them being offering bonuses based on the performance of individual employees over a while or setting up monthly prizes for employees who demonstrate maximum productivity. This will encourage other employees to strive for excellence and increase their performance. Therefore, managers should take care of their employees and praise them when due. They must also show that they value their workers by rewarding them on special occasions like birthdays, anniversaries and even a job well done. The rewards can be anything from a small token gift to a personalised message.
Encouraging Learning
Employees are constantly looking to learn new things. They are always on the lookout for up-gradation in learning something new, something that will increase their knowledge base. This is why there must be a clear policy that encourages learning amongst employees. Employees should be encouraged to attend conferences or seminars that have nothing to do with work so they can broaden their horizons concerning knowledge. This will increase their job satisfaction levels and allow them to work efficiently at high rates.
Final Thoughts
High employee productivity will reflect on the results of work done by them, which will fetch good profits for the company. The effectiveness of the suggestions mentioned above depends largely on the person who has to use them. Hence, managers need to adopt these suggestions as per their requirements and effectively implement them to be motivated and enjoy a healthy work environment.
What’s that saying? You’re more like to get divorced than you are to switch your bank account. Below Matt Shaw, Strategist at RAPP UK, explores why high-street banks need to re-connect with young customers or face losing the next generation to digital first challengers.
For ten years now consumers have been used to getting less from their banks. Lower interest rates, fewer high-street banks and little reward for their “loyalty”.
Against this backdrop a quiet revolution has begun. New digital first challenger banks like Monzo, Atom and Starling are offering something genuinely different and are hoover-ing up younger audiences in the process. What’s more, Open Banking is set to explode consumer choice and making comparing and switching banks easier.
While these challengers pose a threat, established retail banks have a limited window of opportunity. At the moment young consumers are using these challenger bank accounts as “play money”, a supplementary account, allowing them to budget better, rather than a direct rival to the Big Four. However, this “play money” perception is likely to change as customers become more engaged challenger banks’ products and their brands become more established and more trusted.
Traditional retail banks need to sit up and take note if they want to capture the next generation of customers.
Driving preference
Whilst loyalty may be dead, retail banks still have an opportunity to deliver value to their customer base and protect against digital first challengers. Rather than aiming for (and missing) loyalty, retail banks should look to consistently drive preference across the customer lifecycle.
At RAPP we use three key elements to drive preference: Value Perception, Customer Experience, and Generosity.
Good customer data is central to all three of these elements. While new digital first challenger banks have no issues with this, it’s safe to safe that many retail banks will need to get their legacy data and systems in order if they want to deliver these elements.
Value Perception
One of the easiest ways retail banks can drive preference is by reflecting and reminding customers of the value they receive and the relationship they have.
Digital first financial services are currently leading the way in this space. Savings app Chip uses AI to analyze customer data and recommend opportunities for them to squirrel away money into their account in real time. Whilst this is a great new customer experience, the app is also amazing at replaying value back to customers. When money is transferred from your account, their friendly chat bot notifies you with an encouraging message and a humorous gif telling you that you’re #winning. When you ask for your savings balance they not only replay your balance, but your savings to date, your interest rate, the value of this interest and when this interest is due.
Customer Experience
The customer experience gap between digital first challenger banks and established retail banks couldn't be much greater at the moment. Whilst new challenger banks have no high-street stores, they’re beating established banks where it counts, through digital and mobile apps.
Monzo, Starling and Atom offer a stark contrast to the mobile apps of established banks. Their platforms offer spending analytics, integration with third parties and enhanced functionality like bill splitting and money pots; in comparison established banks can offer only the most basic functionality (balance enquiries, payments). Moreover these new challenger banks are constantly evolving their offering, while established banks can only give their apps a UX facelift with no new functionality.
New challenger banks are raising expectations of what a bank should offer consumers, particularly among urban millennials – something established banks should be concerned about as they are the most likely audience to switch provider (32% say they are “very likely” to switch in the next year[1]).
Generosity
Generosity is all about recognizing and rewarding customer engagement through regular value-adds that make customers feel valued.
Retail banks need to get out of the habit of using the transactional rewards based on cash back and increased interest rates. Instead, retail banks should looks to create value through customer data and collaboration with third parties. Both Starling and Monzo have added “marketplace” functionality to their apps allowing third parties to offer customers their services. Starling have two “loyalty” schemes (Flux and Tail) offering customers instant cash back when they make a purchase at restaurants and shops. However, this functionality has the ability to grow exponentially, and into non-financial generosity, with Open Banking making it simple for banks and third parties to interact.
Established retail banks can no longer sit back and let inertia reign supreme. Not only are new banks challenging the status quo and winning younger audiences, their nimble user interfaces and pristine databases mean they are also the most likely to profit from the future innovations of Open Banking. Established retail banks need to wake up to the challenge and rediscover how to drive preference. They can do this by innovating their customer experience to match new heightened expectations, using customer data to replay value and by smattering their base with product and non-product generosity.
Martin de Heus, Head of Business Development at Onguard tells Finance Monthly the situation may get worse before new methods such as segmentation drive improvement.
The issue of late payments is often seen as a major problem for small businesses only, with large corporates cast as the ‘villains’, wielding power by holding cash owed to their suppliers. There is some truth in this assumption. According to YouGov, late payments left UK SMEs £266 million out of pocket in 2016.
However, the business world is a symbiotic environment with few real heroes and villains. The impact of late payment on small businesses is often fast and dramatic – and so more visible. YouGov research also shows that 63% of medium-sized businesses receive late payments at least once a month, compared to 40% of small businesses. According to this study, the impact of late payments in this sector can lead to reduction of innovation spend and even more worryingly, the inability to pay salaries and ultimately, redundancies.
This may be because mid-range companies are most likely to be coping with outdated IT infrastructure with limited support. As a result, they are unable to automate the entire order to cash process and apply methods of segmentation for risk assessment and to ensure customers are invoiced and sent statements by their favoured and most effective method, albeit by post, email or even SMS. This form of segmentation is already considered best practice in the Netherlands and other European companies – and there are now signs of growing popularity in the UK.
But, if in reality, the late payment scourge affects all businesses, what about the belief that it’s
specifically a UK problem? In a further study conducted a few years ago, more than 62% invoices submitted by UK firms were paid late, compared with just 40% in other European countries – so this conjecture does hold some weight.
On top of this, YouGov reports that one in ten business owners believe that the problem has become worse since Brexit – with political and economic uncertainties making firms even more reluctant to part with their money.
So, what can businesses of any size do to manage their cashflow. Here are five things that any self-respecting business should put into place now to help get those payments in more quickly
Be clear about your payment terms
If you don’t make your payment terms obvious, then you can’t really blame the purchaser for hanging on for as long as they can before paying. Make sure your team the correct terms know too. Getting them into print will make the rule more definite and remove any doubt about what is expected and give your customers a consistent message.
Reward early payers
The stick rarely works as well as the carrot – as round after round of research has proved. Incentives for ‘good behaviour’ – that is paying on time can lead to better, feel-good relationships all round.
Stagger invoices
So many companies still batch process invoices once a month. True, it’s convenient, but sending out as soon as a product or service has been delivered could bring more satisfactory results. It also means you benefit from a constant flow of money.
Come down quickly on unpaid debts
Building relationships with your client’s accounts department can pay dividends. If a payment is late get in touch straight away to help create a sense of urgency. If the two departments are on good terms nobody will want to jeopardise this and the client will want to help.
Use segmentation techniques to prioritise and minimise risk
These methods are already strong in many B2C environments where payment methods have multiplied over the past few years. Segmentation can be used to define how statements and invoices are sent and the type of debtor you are dealing with. To give a simple example – in most cases it would be unproductive to send an octogenarian a statement via social media, yet this route could be highly effective when communicating with twenty-year-olds.
Now segmentation is being used increasingly by B2B companies too. Not only can it help in choosing the most effective way of communicating with the company, but it can also help companies pinpoint the types of customers most likely not to pay on time. With this knowledge, accounts departments are aware of the risks and can focus resources on collecting these payments rather than being heavy-handed with all customers including those who always meet the deadline.
Invest in the right tools
The main barriers to automated order to cash and increasingly sophisticated segmentation are out-of-date systems or, worse still, clunky spreadsheets. Credit management software which streamlines and automates the entire order to cash process are becoming used increasingly to solve the late payment challenge, saving time and building better customer relationships. They best integrate with existing ERM and are highly configurable enabling segmentation and other data analysis for the most efficient collection of money owed.
