Among the personal finance New Years resolutions we've recommended for retirees is making sure you're getting a decent interest rate on your savings. But banks are making it awfully hard to pull that off.
Ah, that innocent age when our biggest beef with Europe centered on freedom fries. This election week, no one was asking "where's the beef?" with Wendy's, with the coiner of that iconic phrase bucking a brutal tape to gain 3.05%.
It's call remote deposit capture technology, and you've probably seen it advertised: Snap a smartphone picture of a check, send the image to the bank, and your deposit gets credited. Easy. And while only 3% of banking customers use it now, it could be the killer app that lures most of us into online banking.
While thousands of Americans unleash their anger at big banks in protests around the country, many more are registering their dissatisfaction from their keyboards. In the wake of last week's news that Bank of America is adding a new $5 fee for debit card use, online-only banks saw waves of new customers coming through their virtual doors.
After a painful 2008, insurance companies have made a comeback, with plenty of cash on their balance sheets. As a result, mergers and acquisitions will likely dominate the insurance and reinsurance market in 2010.