Credit Business Loan and Money Exchange

Remember the old days when you had to go to the bank, passport in hand, to convert your sterling into foreign currency? The days are now long gone and there is no shortage of places where you can secure your money for a trip abroad. But with so many choices on where is the best place to exchange your currency? Are banks, travel agencies or local finance company?

If you need to quickly change your pounds into Euros, Dollars, or whatever foreign currency of your choosing, then your options may be limited . Depending on the amount of foreign cash you need you may have to order in advance, particularly with the post office or bank. The waiting time may only be short, often as little as 24 hours, but that is not good if you require your foreign currency immediately. One way round this is to visit your local finance company. There are many of these in the local high street. Not only can they change your money for you instantly, but some also charge absolutely no commission for the transaction.

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Many students know that they have an excessive amount of debt only after graduation. Student loans add up to a large chunk of debt that may take years to get rid of. Schools charge more money every year in the form of tuition and fees related studies, and many people rely solely on financial aid to cover their tuition fees and living costs specified. While student loans have no monthly payments until graduation, degree earned after they become due and your budget can hit really hard. Graduates of the very few make a decent income right after college, and the difficulties facing many students who really finances state loan repayment kicks in when the economy does not make it easy either. Fortunately enough, there are two little-known government program was adopted to assist graduates to manage their loans and get rid of debt faster.

Government Grants
IBR or Income-Based Repayment Program is a form of government help aided to help college graduates to repay their student debt. This grant program may help you to pay off or get forgiven some, or even all, of your student debt. Only people experiencing severe economic hardship are eligible to apply. Application is very simple, with chances of success increasing with your ability to furnish proof of financial hardship that affects your ability to make timely student loan payments. With recent economic downturn more former college students are eligible to apply, so it is really worth giving a shot.

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All business experience a period of low cash flow, where debts seem to outweigh revenue. While some business crumble under the pressure brought on by debt, some business survive and thrive through small business debt consolidation. Debt consolidation for a small business requires the same steps as a personal debt consolidation.

Begin by gathering all the information you have on your debts. You need to total all of your debts and all the invoices and earnings you have coming in for the current and subsequent quarter. You will need to rank your debts into two stacks: debts that need to be paid immediately and debts that can be paid later. Once you have a figure of your debt and a time line for when they need to be paid, you can start thinking about how you will get them paid. Now that you have an idea of what you owe, there are a few options available to help you pay or at least restructure your current debt.

A debt consolidation loan
Wells Fargo Bank provides a wealth of information on how small business can use a Small Business Administration loan for debt consolidation. This is only a better option when you can negotiate a lower interest rate on your consolidation loan. To get an SBA loan for this purpose you will need a total of all the current debts owed, collateral such as real property, equipment, deposit accounts, or other business assets, personal assets if needed, ability to pay principal and interest payments, a working and realistic business model, and the ability to show how the money will produce working capital for up to seven years. The loans offered by Wells Fargo are in the amount of $25,000 to $2 million, with either adjustable or fixed rates of interest. The loans they offer can be used to consolidate up to 10 years of debt.

To escape the debt trap of the global bankers, the power to create the national money supply needs to be restored to national governments. Alternatives include:

Legal tender issued directly by national treasuries and spent on national budgets.

• Publicly-owned central banks empowered to advance the nation’s credit and lend it to the government interest-free.
• Nationalization of bankrupt banks considered “too big to fail” (after expunging or writing down bad debts on inflated bubble assets).  These banks could then issue credit to the public and serve the public’s banking needs, with the profits recycling back to the government, defraying the tax burden on the people.
• Publicly-owned local banks (state, provincial, or municipal).

Publicly-owned banks have been successfully established and operated in many countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, India, China, Japan, Korea, and Malaysia.

In the United States there is currently only one state-owned bank, the Bank of North Dakota. The model, however, has proven to be highly successful. North Dakota is the only U.S. state to have escaped the credit crisis unscathed. In 2009, while other states floundered, North Dakota had its largest budget surplus ever. In 2008, the Bank of North Dakota (BND) had a return on equity of 25%. North Dakota has the lowest unemployment rate in the country and the lowest default rate on loans. It also has the most local banks per capita.

North Dakota has had its own bank since 1919, when farmers were losing their farms to the Wall Street bankers. They organized, won an election, and passed legislation. The state is required by law to deposit all its revenues in the BND. Like with the sustainable model of the bank of colonial Pennsylvania, interest and profits are returned to the government and to the local economy.

A growing movement is afoot in the United States to copy this public banking model in other states. Fourteen U.S. state legislatures have now initiated bills for state-owned banks. The model could also be replicated in other countries. In Ireland, for example, where the major banks are insolvent and are already nationalized or soon will be, the government could deposit its revenues in its own publicly-owned banks, add sufficient capital to meet capital requirements, and leverage these funds to create interest-free credit for its own local needs. That is exactly what Alexander Hamilton did when faced with government debts that were impossible to repay: he put the government’s existing funds in a bank, then borrowed the money back several times over, employing the accepted “fractional reserve” model.

Japan’s solution is also a variant of what Alexander Hamilton proposed two centuries earlier. Japan retains its status as the third largest economy in the world although it has a debt to GDP ratio of 226%. Japan has “monetized” the national debt, turning it into the national money supply. The government-owned Bank of Japan holds Japanese government debt equal to 100% of the nation’s GDP; and because the government owns the bank, this loan is interest-free and can be rolled over indefinitely. An interest-free loan rolled over indefinitely is the equivalent of issuing money.

More than one-third of survey respondents admitted that they didn’t have a budget that would allow them to repay their credit cards in full by year-end 2009. Also, three quarters of respondents didn’t know that writing a bad check for $100 would be more expensive than advancing that money from credit cards, or taking out a payday loan.

Responses to the telephone survey also suggested that younger Americans were more likely to measure the affordability of a purchase by the size of the monthly payment.  These twenty- and thirty-somethings weren’t as concerned with the total cost of the purchase including borrowing fees.

Many respondents openly admitted to making poor decisions with respect to debt management. And, more than half the respondents admitted that they’d over-drafted a checking account at least once in the past.

Recession amplifies bad decisions

The CEEL survey results are somewhat ominous, considering that the U.S. economy is grinding its way through recession. At a time when many households could experience a loss of income, it’s important that consumers know how to manage their borrowing costs. Bad habits, like ignoring the total cost of financed purchases or incurring unnecessary bank charges, can be disastrous when household cash flow is already tight.

CEEL is a financial literacy program that reaches out to young people with quick and relevant quizzes. The organization seeks to “unbaffle” a wide range of personal finance topics, including credit cards, taxes, savings and debt management.