Coming to your bank in 2010: New products and lots of fees

Friend or foe? Banks hope you'll think of them more kindly this year by offering a slew of new products aimed at making life easier for customers. But that convenience, along with pretty much everything else your bank offers, will likely come at a price. In fact, consumers should expect to spend a lot more on fees this year as banks look to replace the money they expect to lose once new credit card rules go into effect next month.

Come February, the Credit Card Act of 2009 will be put in place. The act is generally considered among personal finance experts to be a good thing for consumers -- for instance, credit cards are going to have to be more upfront about their fees and interest rates, and won't be able to raise interest rates on current balances unless a customer is at least 60 days behind on a payment. But the move is bad news for the banks, which claim that they stand to lose $50 billion a year due to these changes, according to The Wall Street Journal. So what's in store for you at your bank? Well, keep in mind that most of what follows are predictions and possibilities, but with that caveat in place, here's what seems to be shaping up at banks this year.

New, obscure fees: As the Wall Street Journal reported, the newest fee on the block comes from the World Financial Network National Bank, which now charges its customers $1 if they get a paper statement in the mail.

Don't think this affects you? Well, you may be wrong if you have a store card with Victoria's Secret, Gander Mountain, Talbots, Pottery Barn or any of the other dozen or so retailers that use World Financial's services.

ping

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704162104574630360393559766.html

some other articles you should read today

Some Fed Officials Conflicted on Mortgage program

http://www.dailyfinance.com/article/some-fed-officials-conflicted-on/652846

Kucinich: No Cap for Fannie, Freddie is Backdoor Bailout

http://moneynews.com/StreetTalk/geithner-tarp-bailout-housing/2010/01/06/id/345536

Why cable is going to cost you more

http://money.cnn.com/2010/01/06/news/companies/cable_bill_cost_increase/index.htm

Trimtabs CEO Biderman: Plunge Protection Team Exists; Has Been Propping Up Stocks

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/tim...ory-2010-01-05

Food Prices to Jump 6%

http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2010...ump-6-percent/

Retail and Tax numbers don’t jibe
Just from a 30,000 ft level....this doesn’t seem to make sense.

There are reports that overall retail sales for this Christmas were up about 2.5 percent over last year...still pretty crappy considering last year was apocalyptic.

Now, as far as taxes on all of those “things” go, the biggest group of sales that do not typically get taxed are those items sold online to people from out of state. Correct? Well, one measure guestimates the online retail as having improved 3.6 percent over last year.

http://www.miamiherald.com/101/story/1400528.html

So, when we see that overall taxation reciepts in the months of November and December are DOWN by 7.7% there is something goofy in the numbers, right?

http://wallstreetexaminer.com/2010/0...ional-edition/

Robert Rubin: All Hell Could Break Loose Because of the Huge Government Debt

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com...eak-loose.html

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