Capital One has announced a new line of credit cards for small businesses. For every dollar spent, the Spark Cash card rewards businesses with up to 2 percent cash back, and the Spark Miles card rewards you with two airline reward miles. What differentiates the cards is the lack of limitations on the rewards. There are no limits on the amount of cash back, and the miles earned never expire. Checks are automatically mailed to the user at the end of a year, but the rewards are available anytime. There are no enrollment fees, but check for annual fees to kick in after the first year.
Google+
Search Articles
Most liked posts
Popular Tags
accounting and taxes blogging blogs Branding Business Development business travel Capital Access Compliance Customer Service ecommerce Email marketing entrepreneur entrepreneurship Facebook Generational Marketing GrowSmartBiz Conference Grow Smart Business lead generation LinkedIn Marketing michael dougherty mobile marketing networking online marketing Raising Capital Resources retail sales sales process SBSI Search Marketing seo small business small business accounting small business hiring small business loans small business marketing small business resources small business technology Small Business Trends social media Technology Twitter Web Design WorkforceCategories
- Categories
- Advanced Degrees
- Allison Kapner
- Best Of…
- Business Development
- Capital Access
- Carol Roth
- Compliance
- Cover Letters
- Customer Service
- Dating
- Email marketing
- Entrepreneurs
- Entrepreneurship
- Entrepreneurship
- Etiquette
- Etiquette
- Events
- Innovation
- Interviewing
- Interviews
- Jennifer Nycz-Conner
- Job Search
- Life Transition
- Lunch with Entrepreneurs
- Marketing
- Networking
- Networking
- Networking
- Networking
- Networking
- Networking
- Networking
- Networking
- Networking
- Networking
- Networking
- Patrick Madsen
- Patti Nuttycombe Cochran
- Personal Brand
- Recruiters
- References
- Resources
- Resumes
- Robin Ferrier
- sales process
- Sarah Morgan
- Small Business
- small business
- Small Business Success Index
- social media
- Technology
- Thomas Madrecki
- Tweetchat
- Uncategorized
- UnintentionalEntrepreneur
- Videos
- What's next Gen Y
- WhatsNextGenY
- Workforce
- Working World
Posts Tagged ‘business credit cards’
Will Small Business Credit Card Users Get Protection?
August 11th, 2011 :: Karen AxeltonBy Karen Axelton
The Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act extended lots of protections to consumer credit cardholders. Thanks to the CARD act, credit card issuers can’t raise rates without notice, add penalty rates to existing balances or charge fees higher than the amounts that are owed. But the CARD act didn’t apply to business credit card holders. Now, The Wall Street Journal reports, legislators are seeking to extend some of those protections to business credit card users.
There’s good reason to seek added protections. The Journal reports that in a still-tough economy, more and more small business owners are using credit cards just to get by. The Journal cites the following sobering statistics:
- In 2010 more than 80% of small businesses used credit cards for working capital; about 64% used business credit cards, according to the Federal Reserve.
- About 60% of small-business bank-loan applications were rejected this year, according to Pepperdine University.
- In contrast, only one-fourth of small companies that applied for business credit cards were rejected.
- Credit-card use by small businesses has risen in the past six months, and more business owners are carrying larger balances ($10,000 to $25,000), according to National Small Business Association data.
In May, Rep. Nita Lowey (D., N.Y.) introduced a bill to extend the CARD Act’s protections to companies with under 50 employees. And in June, Democrats including Sens. Jack Reed (D., R.I.) and Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) called on the central bank to require card issuers to clearly disclose that business credit cards are not covered by the CARD Act.
But banks contend that business credit cards pose higher risks for them, and that they need to be repaid for taking those risks. For instance, one source the Journal cites notes that most small businesses use credit cards for working capital when they can’t get a traditional bank loan. In addition, the limits on business credit cards are far higher than consumer cards, and small business credit-card loss rates are 20% to 30% higher than consumer losses, Federal Reserve data shows.
Banks are making business credit cards increasingly tempting, the Journal notes. In 2010, Federal Reserve data showed that half of small businesses receive business-card offers in the mail every month, up from 35% in June 2009.
There’s some good news for small business credit card holders: More card issuers are adding some CARD Act protections to their business credit cards voluntarily. This group includes Bank of America, Capital One and American Express.
What can you do to protect your business from onerous credit card practices? First, find out specifically what your credit card protections are. Read the fine print. Next, keep your balances reasonable. And third, make your payments on time. Just like any lender, credit card issuers will take swift action if you don’t keep up your end of the bargain—and that means you could be in for a world of hurt.
Image by Flickr user Shawn Rossi (Creative Commons)
Google+
Could Business Credit Cards Gain New Protections?
June 16th, 2011 :: Maria Valdez HaubrichBy Maria Valdez Haubrich
The CARD Act, enacted in 2009, added protections for consumer credit cards against unfair or deceptive business practices. Now the Pew Health Group is urging that such protection be extended to business credit cards as well, reports CNBC.
Credit cards for business or commercial use are exempt from the CARD Act. Pew’s Safe Credit Cards Project studied credit cards issued by the 12 largest credit card issuers. These companies account for some 85 percent of the 11 million small business credit cards active in the U.S.
The study, Business Credit Cards Place U.S. Households at Risk, found that while some major banks have voluntarily become more “transparent” about their business credit card practices, the majority have not. “While consumer credit cards in general no longer include unpredictable pricing structures and hair-trigger penalty interest rates, these and other potentially harmful practices remain common on business credit cards that millions of individuals use,” the report states.
Here are some findings of the study:
- 80 percent of business credit cards in the study had an “any time” change-in-terms clause with no right to opt out. In other words, card issuers can change the account terms at any time without notice. In comparison, with consumer cards, cardholders are typically able to opt out if terms are changed, and must be given 45 days’ notice before a change.
- 84 percent of business credit cards allow card issuers to apply payments to lower-rate balances first, meaning charges on higher-rate balances are maximized.
- 67 percent of business credit cards have penalty rates for going over the limit or paying late. The median annual percentage rate for penalties was 29.4 percent. The penalty rates can be applied without notice and can last indefinitely. For this to happen with consumer cards, the account must be seriously delinquent.
73 percent of business credit cards charged a late fee (in addition to the interest rate increase), and 67 percent of the cards had an overlimit fee. These fees averaged $39 each. Consumer cards have restrictions on penalty fees.
Nick Bourke, director of Pew’s Safe Credit Cards Project, is urging legislators to extend the protections of the Credit Card Act to any card where a cardholder is personally liable. If a card is not covered by the CARD Act, Pew is urging that consumers be warned of this fact.
Pew is primarily concerned with individuals who have business credit cards without being aware of the different policies. But any change to these policies would be welcome for business owners and their employees who might be harmed by onerous and unfair policies.
Image by Flickr user Shawn Rossi (Creative Commons)
Google+Which Business Credit Cards Rank Best for Small Business?
May 17th, 2011 :: Karen AxeltonBy Karen Axelton
The CARD Act added lots of protections to consumer credit cards—but it didn’t extend to business credit cards. Have any business credit card issuers taken steps to extend some of the same protections to their business customers? That’s one of the things CardHub sought to find out in the latest CardHub Small Business Credit Card Study.
CardHub looked at the business credit card practices of the nation’s 10 largest credit card companies to “determine which of these issuers, if any, have proactively extended CARD Act protections to their business credit cards, and to evaluate their level of transparency regarding business credit card practices,” the company says in its report.
CardHub focused on the protections most likely to be the most useful to small business owners, and gave a percentage weight to each protection as follows:
- An increased interest rate/penalty APR cannot be applied to an existing balance unless the cardholder is at least 60 days delinquent: 40 percent
- No double cycle billing: 15 percent
- No universal default: 15 percent
- Issuer must provide 45 days notice before changing terms of card agreement: 15 percent
- The amount of a payment that is above the minimum must be applied to the balance with the highest interest rate: 15 percent
Issuers’ highest possible score was 100. Each issuer was also rated based on the “transparency” of its business credit card policy. Issuers that were completely forthright about their practices were rated “Good;” those that provided some, but vague, information were rated “Mediocre;” and those that declined to respond to questions about their policies were rated “Bad.”
The winner by far? Bank of America, which offers its business credit card holders CARD Act protections including no double-cycle billing, universal default, favorable payment allocation and 45 days notice before making account changes. Bank of America also waits until accounts are at least 60 days overdue before raising interest rates.
While several other companies besides Bank of America rated “Good” in terms of transparency, many of those ranked poorly in terms of their actual policies.
“The longer industry leaders wait [to extend CARD Act protections to business credit card users],” say the authors of the study, “the more likely it is that their customers will rely on personal credit cards for business spending. Not only will this cost their business credit card divisions money, but the banks themselves will also be privy to less useful underwriting information as a result.”
You can see the top 10 ranking and read detailed breakdowns of the areas where each credit card issuer did well and poorly at the CardHub site.
Image by Flickr user demosphere (Creative Commons)
Google+
