Safe Deposit Boxes Remain Useful Even as Demand Wanes

Looking for a place to keep your platinum ingots, important documents or precious family heirlooms? A decade ago, you might have gone straight to the bank and opened a safe deposit box. But with virtual finance on the rise—more than half of U.S. adults bank online—it’s becoming less convenient and it makes less sense to travel to a bricks-and-mortar location to store valuables. Are safe deposit boxes still relevant? What are they, when should you use them and what are the alternatives?

Safe deposit boxes explained

Safe deposit boxes are compartments within financial institutions’ vaults where customers can stow important or valuable papers and personal treasures such as birth certificates, government bonds and prized jewelry or precious metals. More secure than ordinary home safes, they protect customers’ valuables from loss, theft and destruction by natural disasters.

Annual rental fees range from $15 to $150 depending on size, according to the Safe Deposit Specialists, a consulting firm in Houston. The boxes can be as small as 2 inches by 5 inches to as large as 10 inches by 10 inches and are usually 22 inches long.

Customers should use safe deposit boxes to store items they won’t need to access immediately, such as property deeds, car titles and U.S. savings bonds, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. advises. The FDIC doesn’t insure the contents the way they do with deposited cash, so currency kept this way could be at risk. It’s safer to keep your dollars in a savings account so your funds are covered by the FDIC and earn interest.

Deposit boxes shouldn’t be used to store anything you might need in an emergency, because your access is limited—you can’t get to the box after office hours and on holidays. For example, power of attorney documents, which give family members the right to make financial or health decisions for a loved one, should be kept at home for accessibility anytime.

Alternate options

Safe deposit box use is on the decline, as many of those that exist are empty, the Boston Globe reported in March. Barclays, HSBC Group and other banks have discontinued the service in recent years, according to BBC News in London. So where do you keep essential documents and valuables if you choose to forgo a bank vault?

Many people have turned to home safes for tangible items such as heirloom jewelry and gold ingots. These systems are better than nothing, though not as secure as a bank safe deposit box, the FDIC says. Thieves can break into or carry off a strongbox even if it weighs a few hundred pounds. Rather than take that risk, consumers can scan important paperwork and store the digital copy. But some documents are only legally useful when they carry a signature and a notary’s seal, so the originals still need to be preserved.

Another popular option for documents is a virtual safe deposit box. These are offered through some financial institutions and third-party platforms. Examples include:

• Estate Asset – An online product that lets users upload wills, life insurance policies, passwords and more, and share that information with loved ones.

• My Virtual StrongBox – A free cloud-based service offered through banks, credit unions and wealth management companies to store wills, mortgages, tax documents, family photos and more.

• DataVault – A drop box for online banking, DataVault stores documents online in a secure location and lets banks and customers send copies of things like loan agreements to each other.

Whether you stick with a traditional safe deposit box, store your precious objects in a home safe or vital papers on a personal hard drive, or choose a virtual product for those documents, it’s important to have some method of safeguarding your valuables from theft and destruction. There are more choices today for documents, but for things like heirlooms and platinum, a safe or vault may still be the best option.

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Safe deposit box image via Shutterstock.

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When Starting a Small Business, Should You Provide Unlimited Vacation to Your Employees?

Few nations vacation less than the United States. Among developed countries, only Japanese and South Koreans earn less time off from work than Americans, according to a 2012 Expedia study.

Two moves have thrust the vacation question into the spotlight. Virgin Group founder Richard Branson announced the company would be experimenting with unlimited vacation for its employees. And Carlos Slim, a Mexican business magnate and the world’s second-richest man, called for a “radical overhaul” in our work mentality, suggesting a three-day work week offset by longer hours and delayed retirement.

Branson’s parent company would follow the lead of Netflix, Groupon and Best Buy by offering unlimited vacation to its 200 employees. If the experiment is successful, Branson says he is encouraging a similar policy for Virgin Group’s subsidiaries, which have more 50,000 employees globally.

Critics question whether the policy can scale. But for a growing number of small and medium-sized businesses, unlimited vacation policies are gaining traction as a low-cost (or no-cost) way to woo employees and increase productivity.

Unlimited vacation “enables companies to provide an additional job ‘perk’ with little to no added cost. The idea is that even if employees are taking more vacation time than they used to, they are more productive during the time they are at work,” Christina Gomez, a partner with the law firm Holland & Hart, told Fox Business. “It can [also] improve efficiency and productivity by incentivizing employees to get their work done more efficiently so they can take time off.”

Many observers scoff at Branson’s plan. Business psychologists Peter Coleman and Robert Ferguson claim that “`Endless summers’ do little but incentivize workaholics to work more, while everyone else suffers negative consequences for time off.” In an op-ed for Time Magazine titled “Richard Branson’s Unlimited Vacation Is a Trick,” they suggest the policy’s true benefit is to the bottom line, as it means companies won’t have to pay overtime or pay back unused vacation time for departing employees.

Moreover, the important caveat of unlimited vacation policies—that they can be enjoyed so long as “your work gets done”—means that employees will feel pressure not to shuffle work onto colleagues on breaks, or will be more likely to work remotely when “on vacation,” the authors note.

Their comments mirror much of the commentary following Branson’s announcement. “Beware the implications of unlimited vacation,” Venessa Wong writes for BusinessWeek. “The glow of trust and togetherness that such policies provide could actually make employees less likely to take time off.”

As Branson himself put it on his blog: “It is left to the employee alone to decide if and when he or she feels like taking a few hours, a day, a week or a month off, the assumption being that they are only going to do it when they feel 100% comfortable that they and their team are up to date on every project and that their absence will not in any way damage the business—or, for that matter, their careers!”

About 1% of U.S. companies have unlimited vacation policies, although another 2% are considering it, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) tells Business Insider. “There really isn’t a lot of abuse in these plans,” says Bruce Elliott, manager of compensation and benefits at the SHRM. “They work really well in high-performance organizations.”

(Full disclosure: NerdWallet is among the companies with an unlimited vacation policy. Fuller disclosure: This writer has taken five weeks of vacation days since starting with the company last December. Fullest disclosure: Yes, it’s awesome.)

There’s no way to know how much time off employees take at firms with unlimited vacation policies, since the companies themselves don’t track the stats. A 2012 survey by training firm Fierce Inc. asked: “If you had unlimited vacation time, how much would you actually take?” The largest group or respondents—42%—said between four and six weeks.

Proponents of more time off say the benefits far outweigh any risks of abuse. Slim, the Mexican billionaire, believes decreasing the average work week “would generate a healthier and more productive labor force, while tackling financial challenges linked to longevity,” the Financial Times reported.

One economist tells NerdWallet that “the glow of trust and togetherness,” as BusinessWeek characterized it, should not be undervalued. Research by John Helliwell, a noted expert on the economics of well-being, found that when a workplace increases trust in management by one point on a 10-point scale, “it has the equivalent impact on worker satisfaction as a nearly one-third increase in income.

“Trust has a huge impact, but it’s seldom measured and [companies] often neglect it,” Helliwell says.

---

Employee on vacation image via Shutterstock.

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When Starting a Small Business, Should You Provide Unlimited Vacation to Your Employees?

Few nations vacation less than the United States. Among developed countries, only Japanese and South Koreans earn less time off from work than Americans, according to a 2012 Expedia study.

Two moves have thrust the vacation question into the spotlight. Virgin Group founder Richard Branson announced the company would be experimenting with unlimited vacation for its employees. And Carlos Slim, a Mexican business magnate and the world’s second-richest man, called for a “radical overhaul” in our work mentality, suggesting a three-day work week offset by longer hours and delayed retirement.

Branson’s parent company would follow the lead of Netflix, Groupon and Best Buy by offering unlimited vacation to its 200 employees. If the experiment is successful, Branson says he is encouraging a similar policy for Virgin Group’s subsidiaries, which have more 50,000 employees globally.

Critics question whether the policy can scale. But for a growing number of small and medium-sized businesses, unlimited vacation policies are gaining traction as a low-cost (or no-cost) way to woo employees and increase productivity.

Unlimited vacation “enables companies to provide an additional job ‘perk’ with little to no added cost. The idea is that even if employees are taking more vacation time than they used to, they are more productive during the time they are at work,” Christina Gomez, a partner with the law firm Holland & Hart, told Fox Business. “It can [also] improve efficiency and productivity by incentivizing employees to get their work done more efficiently so they can take time off.”

Many observers scoff at Branson’s plan. Business psychologists Peter Coleman and Robert Ferguson claim that “`Endless summers’ do little but incentivize workaholics to work more, while everyone else suffers negative consequences for time off.” In an op-ed for Time Magazine titled “Richard Branson’s Unlimited Vacation Is a Trick,” they suggest the policy’s true benefit is to the bottom line, as it means companies won’t have to pay overtime or pay back unused vacation time for departing employees.

Moreover, the important caveat of unlimited vacation policies—that they can be enjoyed so long as “your work gets done”—means that employees will feel pressure not to shuffle work onto colleagues on breaks, or will be more likely to work remotely when “on vacation,” the authors note.

Their comments mirror much of the commentary following Branson’s announcement. “Beware the implications of unlimited vacation,” Venessa Wong writes for BusinessWeek. “The glow of trust and togetherness that such policies provide could actually make employees less likely to take time off.”

As Branson himself put it on his blog: “It is left to the employee alone to decide if and when he or she feels like taking a few hours, a day, a week or a month off, the assumption being that they are only going to do it when they feel 100% comfortable that they and their team are up to date on every project and that their absence will not in any way damage the business—or, for that matter, their careers!”

About 1% of U.S. companies have unlimited vacation policies, although another 2% are considering it, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) tells Business Insider. “There really isn’t a lot of abuse in these plans,” says Bruce Elliott, manager of compensation and benefits at the SHRM. “They work really well in high-performance organizations.”

(Full disclosure: NerdWallet is among the companies with an unlimited vacation policy. Fuller disclosure: This writer has taken five weeks of vacation days since starting with the company last December. Fullest disclosure: Yes, it’s awesome.)

There’s no way to know how much time off employees take at firms with unlimited vacation policies, since the companies themselves don’t track the stats. A 2012 survey by training firm Fierce Inc. asked: “If you had unlimited vacation time, how much would you actually take?” The largest group or respondents—42%—said between four and six weeks.

Proponents of more time off say the benefits far outweigh any risks of abuse. Slim, the Mexican billionaire, believes decreasing the average work week “would generate a healthier and more productive labor force, while tackling financial challenges linked to longevity,” the Financial Times reported.

One economist tells NerdWallet that “the glow of trust and togetherness,” as BusinessWeek characterized it, should not be undervalued. Research by John Helliwell, a noted expert on the economics of well-being, found that when a workplace increases trust in management by one point on a 10-point scale, “it has the equivalent impact on worker satisfaction as a nearly one-third increase in income.

“Trust has a huge impact, but it’s seldom measured and [companies] often neglect it,” Helliwell says.

---

Employee on vacation image via Shutterstock.

Source Article :http://bit.ly/1pIy9ig

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Tougher Oversight Could Make Car Loans Fairer, Cut Costs

If you’ve ever felt like you were taken for a ride when the bill finally arrives for that nice new car you financed through the dealer, you’re not alone. And the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau aims to do something about it.

The agency wants to oversee nonbank auto finance companies, becoming the regulatory supervisor of 38 lenders that make, acquire or refinance 10,000 or more loans or leases in a year. This would put the finance arms of companies such as Toyota, Honda and Ford under the bureau’s watchful eye

You may be less likely to overpay for your next car if the agency succeeds in broadening its authority to include these finance companies. And if you fall behind on payments, you may escape the abusive practices some borrowers have been subjected to, according to the bureau. For nonwhite buyers, the added oversight aims to prevent discriminatory practices that can push up your costs.

Millions of loans

The 38 companies the agency wants to oversee originate close to 90% of all nonbank auto loans and leases and provide financing to about 6.8 million consumers each year, according to agency Director Richard Cordray. The bureau already supervises large banks, including their car-lending operations.

“It should not matter whether you get a loan or lease from a company that has a banking charter versus one that does not – every auto lender should be following the law and be subject to the same level of oversight,” Cordray said at a Sept. 18 hearing on the subject in Indianapolis.

Concerns over nonbank finance company lending practices include the use of deceptive marketing tactics, incorrect reporting of consumer information to credit bureaus, and unfair debt collection methods, according to the agency.

Subprime lender fined

In August, the bureau ordered First Investors Financial Services Group, a Texas-based subprime auto lender, to pay a $2.75 million fine for allegedly distorting borrower credit reports. The company made loans to people whose credit scores fell below what most banks deem unacceptable.

“For years, the company knew it was sending incorrect information about tens of thousands of its own customers to the credit bureaus,” Cordray said about First Investors in a statement.

Other nonbank finance company complaints have been received from consumers who say their cars have been repossessed even though they are current on the loan or have a payment plan, according to the agency.

Lender discrimination

Discriminatory car-lending practices remain another concern of the agency.

Last year, Ally Financial reached a $98 million settlement with federal authorities over a lawsuit alleging the company let dealers mark up interest rates on auto loans to nonwhite borrowers, including African-Americans, Asians and Hispanics. About $80 million of that was distributed to some 235,000 borrowers. Actions against several other lenders will result in an additional $56 million in compensation for up to 190,000 consumers harmed by discriminatory practices, according to the bureau.

“In these cases, minority borrowers were paying more for their loans than similarly situated non-Hispanic white borrowers,” Cordray said at the Indianapolis hearing.

Americans owe more on their cars – $900 billion at the start of this year – than any other common household debt except mortgages and student loans.

Rulemaking takes months

The proposed rule is open for comment 60 days after publication in the Federal Register. The details can be found here. The final regulations would take effect 60 days following their appearance in the register.

No one wants to be fooled into buying a car they can’t afford or suffer discrimination, and with greater federal oversight, the illegal practices of auto lenders and their agents could become a thing of the past.

---

Loan image via Shutterstock.

Source Article http://ift.tt/1y39EC7

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Tougher Oversight Could Make Car Loans Fairer, Cut Costs

If you’ve ever felt like you were taken for a ride when the bill finally arrives for that nice new car you financed through the dealer, you’re not alone. And the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau aims to do something about it.

The agency wants to oversee nonbank auto finance companies, becoming the regulatory supervisor of 38 lenders that make, acquire or refinance 10,000 or more loans or leases in a year. This would put the finance arms of companies such as Toyota, Honda and Ford under the bureau’s watchful eye

You may be less likely to overpay for your next car if the agency succeeds in broadening its authority to include these finance companies. And if you fall behind on payments, you may escape the abusive practices some borrowers have been subjected to, according to the bureau. For nonwhite buyers, the added oversight aims to prevent discriminatory practices that can push up your costs.

Millions of loans

The 38 companies the agency wants to oversee originate close to 90% of all nonbank auto loans and leases and provide financing to about 6.8 million consumers each year, according to agency Director Richard Cordray. The bureau already supervises large banks, including their car-lending operations.

“It should not matter whether you get a loan or lease from a company that has a banking charter versus one that does not – every auto lender should be following the law and be subject to the same level of oversight,” Cordray said at a Sept. 18 hearing on the subject in Indianapolis.

Concerns over nonbank finance company lending practices include the use of deceptive marketing tactics, incorrect reporting of consumer information to credit bureaus, and unfair debt collection methods, according to the agency.

Subprime lender fined

In August, the bureau ordered First Investors Financial Services Group, a Texas-based subprime auto lender, to pay a $2.75 million fine for allegedly distorting borrower credit reports. The company made loans to people whose credit scores fell below what most banks deem unacceptable.

“For years, the company knew it was sending incorrect information about tens of thousands of its own customers to the credit bureaus,” Cordray said about First Investors in a statement.

Other nonbank finance company complaints have been received from consumers who say their cars have been repossessed even though they are current on the loan or have a payment plan, according to the agency.

Lender discrimination

Discriminatory car-lending practices remain another concern of the agency.

Last year, Ally Financial reached a $98 million settlement with federal authorities over a lawsuit alleging the company let dealers mark up interest rates on auto loans to nonwhite borrowers, including African-Americans, Asians and Hispanics. About $80 million of that was distributed to some 235,000 borrowers. Actions against several other lenders will result in an additional $56 million in compensation for up to 190,000 consumers harmed by discriminatory practices, according to the bureau.

“In these cases, minority borrowers were paying more for their loans than similarly situated non-Hispanic white borrowers,” Cordray said at the Indianapolis hearing.

Americans owe more on their cars – $900 billion at the start of this year – than any other common household debt except mortgages and student loans.

Rulemaking takes months

The proposed rule is open for comment 60 days after publication in the Federal Register. The details can be found here. The final regulations would take effect 60 days following their appearance in the register.

No one wants to be fooled into buying a car they can’t afford or suffer discrimination, and with greater federal oversight, the illegal practices of auto lenders and their agents could become a thing of the past.

---

Loan image via Shutterstock.

Source Article :http://bit.ly/1s2hn3x

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JPMorgan Chase Hackers Put Millions at Risk, So Take These Steps to Avoid Getting Burned

If you’re one of the millions of people whose name and contact information fell into the hands of hackers who attacked JPMorgan Chase, prepare yourself: You may be targeted by attempts to pry out more critical information.

While the bank hasn’t detected any fraud and says all money is safe, the breach exposed the names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses tied to 76 million households and 7 million small businesses. There was no sign of stolen account numbers, passwords, user identifications, birthdates or Social Security numbers, Chase says.

What you should do

Given this massive exposure of customer contact information, people affected should be on the lookout for spam emails, phone calls and text messages, says Avivah Litan, a vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner Research, an information technology research company. Fraudsters may be looking to take advantage of you through techniques known as phishing.

“We’re already seeing a lot of these spam emails and texts and phone calls as a result of previous breaches, so this is just going to add to it,” Litan says. “All the data is being collected and sold on the black market, and different criminals buy it for different reasons.”

If you receive suspicious messages or calls, don’t give out credit card digits, Social Security numbers, or any other private information. Banks will never ask for this by email, so if someone does request it, you’re probably dealing with a fraudster.

Don’t trust, do verify

Consumers shouldn’t necessarily trust communications that explicitly mention the name of Chase or any other bank.

“I would envision that a lot of the phishing exploits would mention Chase specifically,” says Doug Johnson, a vice president at the American Bankers Association. “What the phisher is trying to do is send you something which you would have a reasonable expectation of opening up.”

Chase also warns consumers not to click on links or open attachments to fishy emails. To avoid being reeled into one of these traps by telephone, if you get a suspicious call from someone claiming to be from the bank, hang up, call the bank and ask to be connected, or visit a branch in person. Chances are the call was a phishing expedition.

Chase customers aren’t the only ones who should take precautions, Johnson says.

“This was a marketing database; it wasn’t a customer database,” he says of the Chase target the hackers breached. “So while a majority of the data will be of customers, there will be some non-customer data in there as well.”

“[People] can’t stop the theft of the data, but they can stop the use of the stolen data in terms of harming them,” Litan says.

Report suspicious activity

With this security breach – affecting the largest number of people of any known incursion to date – and recent attacks on Target, Michaels, Neiman Marcus and Home Depot, it’s obvious that successful hacks are becoming more common. Therefore, all consumers should check their credit and debit account statements regularly to look for unauthorized purchases. Report any suspicious activity to your card issuer, bank or credit union immediately to avoid potential liability; the sooner you speak up, the more likely you are to get your money back, Litan says.

Small business owners should take the same precautions and train their employees, including bookkeepers and treasurers, to be wary of potential scams, Litan says.

Additionally, you may want to place a fraud alert on your credit report, change passwords and consider identity theft protection services, the Consumer Bankers Association advised earlier this month. For more safety tips, check out this handy guide. With a little luck and some proactive steps now, you may avoid the pain that having your credit and bank accounts hacked can cause.

JPMorgan Chase image via Shutterstock

Source Article :http://bit.ly/1vmxMNC

Read More

JPMorgan Chase Hackers Put Millions at Risk, So Take These Steps to Avoid Getting Burned

If you’re one of the millions of people whose name and contact information fell into the hands of hackers who attacked JPMorgan Chase, prepare yourself: You may be targeted by attempts to pry out more critical information.

While the bank hasn’t detected any fraud and says all money is safe, the breach exposed the names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses tied to 76 million households and 7 million small businesses. There was no sign of stolen account numbers, passwords, user identifications, birthdates or Social Security numbers, Chase says.

What you should do

Given this massive exposure of customer contact information, people affected should be on the lookout for spam emails, phone calls and text messages, says Avivah Litan, a vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner Research, an information technology research company. Fraudsters may be looking to take advantage of you through techniques known as phishing.

“We’re already seeing a lot of these spam emails and texts and phone calls as a result of previous breaches, so this is just going to add to it,” Litan says. “All the data is being collected and sold on the black market, and different criminals buy it for different reasons.”

If you receive suspicious messages or calls, don’t give out credit card digits, Social Security numbers, or any other private information. Banks will never ask for this by email, so if someone does request it, you’re probably dealing with a fraudster.

Don’t trust, do verify

Consumers shouldn’t necessarily trust communications that explicitly mention the name of Chase or any other bank.

“I would envision that a lot of the phishing exploits would mention Chase specifically,” says Doug Johnson, a vice president at the American Bankers Association. “What the phisher is trying to do is send you something which you would have a reasonable expectation of opening up.”

Chase also warns consumers not to click on links or open attachments to fishy emails. To avoid being reeled into one of these traps by telephone, if you get a suspicious call from someone claiming to be from the bank, hang up, call the bank and ask to be connected, or visit a branch in person. Chances are the call was a phishing expedition.

Chase customers aren’t the only ones who should take precautions, Johnson says.

“This was a marketing database; it wasn’t a customer database,” he says of the Chase target the hackers breached. “So while a majority of the data will be of customers, there will be some non-customer data in there as well.”

“[People] can’t stop the theft of the data, but they can stop the use of the stolen data in terms of harming them,” Litan says.

Report suspicious activity

With this security breach – affecting the largest number of people of any known incursion to date – and recent attacks on Target, Michaels, Neiman Marcus and Home Depot, it’s obvious that successful hacks are becoming more common. Therefore, all consumers should check their credit and debit account statements regularly to look for unauthorized purchases. Report any suspicious activity to your card issuer, bank or credit union immediately to avoid potential liability; the sooner you speak up, the more likely you are to get your money back, Litan says.

Small business owners should take the same precautions and train their employees, including bookkeepers and treasurers, to be wary of potential scams, Litan says.

Additionally, you may want to place a fraud alert on your credit report, change passwords and consider identity theft protection services, the Consumer Bankers Association advised earlier this month. For more safety tips, check out this handy guide. With a little luck and some proactive steps now, you may avoid the pain that having your credit and bank accounts hacked can cause.

JPMorgan Chase image via Shutterstock

Source Article http://ift.tt/1y39EC7

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