Tempo’s Decoupled Debit Cards

Tempo will soon be offering a “decoupled debit card.” What does decoupled debit mean? Your debit card doesn’t need to be issued by the bank you work with. In fact, a totally different bank can offer the card, even when the money comes in and out of your account at your first bank. Not only can you upload your own picture for your card (kewl!)–but if a company you like issues a debit card that gives you rewards for making purchases with them, you can also sign up for that card, no matter who you bank with. From Tempo’s CEO (via American Banker (video)]:

With decoupled debit, all of a sudden major merchants, or even smaller merchants, can work with a bank, offer a co-branded program, offer a debit solution to their customer base, (and) in the process, approve a much larger percentage of the people that might apply, and make their customers happier.”

It looks like the debit card could soon fit our lifestyles a bit better, and we may benefit from rewards programs a bit more.

Status: Tempo’s front page says they will release their “revolutionary new product” before July.

A Cooler World, One Banking Profile At A Time

Cooler Inc. will soon be releasing a tool that “lets you calculate your climate impact directly from your financial data, and how to save or make money, and save the planet!” (Mike Linskey) Sounds like a good idea at a good time. When they unveil this product (and if there is a price) is unclear, but with the ability to look at your combined financial stats on sites like Wesabe, I imagine this tool will be part of everyone’s online finance management soon!

Status: I can’t tell what the release date is, but as further news is written about Finovate, I’m sure we’ll have an idea of when the tool goes public.

Invest in Students–Literally

People Capital hopes that earnings projections of students based on their grades, standardized test score, major, and school will encourage people to invest in the students by offering them loans that earn them good interest, but still keep students paying less than if they took out the loan somewhere else like a bank with their under-developed credit scores. I really like the overall message that People Capital is trying to convey–specifially, that this service could really help out promising students by looking at their success in a domain suited to them. I hope they’ll have a few years of positive results because even if a student doesn’t need to have a great financial history in order to be loan-worthy, People Capital will need a great financial history to convince lenders and students alike that this is the right way to go. As Jim Bruene, the founder of Finovate and editor of netbanker.com tweets, “Can People Capital’s Human Capital Score disrupt student lending? Will be interesting to follow.” I’m interested, and so are my younger brothers.

Status: Their site is up and running, as is People Capital’s Human Capital Score test, which projects students’ future earnings (if you are a student, you can be told what you will probably make in 10 years! Crazy!). I’m not clear whether or not they are connecting lenders to borrowers quite yet, but I would guess they’ll be doing it soon if they’re not already. I’ll add an update to this post when I find out.

S1m0ne’s Here to Help You Balance That Checkbook

Er…sorry–that’s not S1m0ne it’s Sophie! While Mint introduced its Financial Fitness tool at Finovate (see our previous post for details), Simplifi is a entire tool dedicated to assessing your current financial situation and helping you save for future plans. Linskey says the site offers “Asset allocation, goal-based planning, debt management, protection, and a very simple UI,” which suggests this is a powerful tool that’s designed to be useful to everyone. The site has plenty of demo videos to help you through the process (which unfortunately lack sound) and Sophie–a virtual financial advisor to guide you through the process. My financial situation isn’t too complex, so I don’t think I’ve been able to take full advantage of the site, but if I had more complicated loans, and monthly payments, I could see this site as another tool to help me visualize my finances and plan better for the future. Unfortunately, you have to input more of the information manually which is a pain (and, after signing up for almost a dozen online money management tools, seems unnecessary to me), but after that, suggested asset allocation, projected total assets, and a debt management tool have helped me think of my finances in a more long-term way

Status: Up and running! Sign up at Simplifi.com!

Save On Gas and Save Gas Finding It

The folks over at Billshrink have been doing a great job with helping you find better credit cards and cellphone plans, and they’ve just added a tool the help you find the cheapest places for you to find gas. This tool tracks places between your home and work, calculating the “true cost” of going to gas stations that are both near you and those a bit out of the way. Just like with their credit card and cell phone search tools, you can filter your searches carefully (by brand of station, age of price, and station features) as well as pick which stations you like an only have those prices displayed. This tool is great, and if I drove a car (ah, the good ol’ days), I’d definitely take advantage of this useful tool.

Status: Up and running! GO to Billshrink.com to learn more.

Related Links/Sources:

• Lazy Man live blogged the whole event at his site. (Much gratitude, sir!) Check out his brief descriptions and thoughtful commentary on all of the presenters here.
• Mike Linskey is a Director at Fincision, an e-commerce consultancy firm. His live blogging, which includes pictures, is here.(Thanks to you too, Mike!)
• For a full listing of the attending companies at Finovate Startup 2009, see the conference’s site here.

Many banks today advertise ‘bonus options’ for their accounts that are already industry standard. If you’ve been the customer of only one bank for sometime, you may not know that other banks already offer account features that advertise as ‘new and free!’ or ‘coming soon!’ Here’s a list of features that are virtually industry standard. If your bank doesn’t offer these features, or if they advertise them as “NEW FREE” features, you may benefit from checking out a new bank. Chances are if your bank is behind the times with that feature, they’re are a number of other features that a better bank could offer you.

 

“Free Debit Card!”

This was a great discount when debit cards were first issued in the 70’s, but at this point, so many bank customers use ATMs and commit electronic transactions that most banks will lose customers if they don’t offer these. Still, many major banks charge card holders for debit cards. Make sure they’re not slipping in that $1 monthly fee without you knowing!
 

“Free Online Banking…!”

While initial skepticism about the safety of online banking kept many away, online banking now has an unprecedented amount of security. But it isn’t free for banks to offer online banking, so the question is: should it be free? Again, the bank wants to keep your service, and to do so, it must offer great features. Most major banks at this time do offer online banking where you can check your balance, transfer money between account, and export your account data into tools like Quicken or MSMoney. And all of this for FREE.
 

“…And Free Bill Pay!”

While bill pay is more complicated and expensive for banks to offer, there plenty of banks that allow you to schedule bill payments for free online.
 

“Free Introductory Checks!”

That initial offering of free checks is benefitical to you and to the bank because it familiarizes you with and gets you into the habit of using checks (which you’ll later have to buy). You shouldn’t have a problem finding a checking acconut that offers a free introductory box of checks. And many premium accounts come with free checks for the life of the account!
 

“Free Rewards Program!”

Many banks offer rewards programs for items like digital cameras, airline milage, and cash back, but the benefits of the program don’t need to be great. ANY sort of rewards program, (even one where you could earn points only toward porcelain toasters) can be called a rewards program. Make sure you know what you’re getting into with a free rewards program–while they can be good advertisement for the bank, a bad program is easy for a bank to offer.
 

To save government money, banks in 30 states no longer mail paper checks and work with banks to offer recipients of unemployment benefits their alternative: check cards.

But the cost of processing these unique payments seems to be passed along to the unemployed, as extra bank fees apply to these cards in complicated ways.

Check out the full article here (AP) or read a shorter report and an accompanying video (NBC25.com).

From the articles we can gather some facts:

• There is a cost to grant check card holders access to their money and neither the government nor the banks wants to pay this cost.

• The government has set a minimum requirement–banks need to make the unemployed’s money accessible for free. Banks are complying by allowing the card holder to access their money once each month for free, either by teller or by one free ATM withdrawal (depending on the bank and the state).

• Banks make money on account activity after this initial use.

• Yes, it seems ironic that bailed-out banks are able to make money through fees and interest on these balances, but–

• There are measures unemployed people can take to avoid these charges.

While withdrawing the money all at once and putting it under your mattress or in a different checking account can help you avoid these fees, there is a clear alternative for someone who already has a checking account:

Set Up Direct Deposit.

States allow you to receive your check as a direct deposit into your checking account -– 54% of people receiving unemployment benefits already enroll in direct deposit. This avoids the unusual maintenance fees of the unemployment check card, and you will already be familiar with any sort of fees that may apply. It will take some paperwork to set up the direct deposit, but for those of us who need to watch every penny spent, direct deposit is the best choice.

Further Reading:

A list of 40 States that issue unemployment benefits through check card or are considering it.

An article by Monica Yant Kinney about the Hidden Cost of Unemployment Benefits in Philadelphia.

Finally, an AP article from Propeller.com–Meltdown 101: Some tips on collecting unemployment.