Travel Insurance

Whatever your purpose for traveling is; whether business or leisure, multi-trip travel plans offer you complete coverage for the entire year wherever you go. But remember insurance requirements will be different in different cases. For instance, if you travel overseas very frequently, then your insurance requirements will be different as compared to your traveling within your own country. You need to make few important considerations before buying an insurance cover to safeguard your journey.

Having a through knowledge about insurance plans will be an added advantage. You can buy something that perfectly suits your need at very affordable prices. But if you’re unsure about the level of coverage you require, then you may face difficulty in finding a suitable plan for yourself. Not to worry, you can always make efforts to gain an understanding of the basic concept by reading few informatory articles on the subject or availing personalised services from insurance professionals.

Once you have gained the basic understanding of the concept, you can easily calculate the risks and uncertainties associated with your journey and look for insurance products accordingly. But if you’re traveling to expensive countries like UK, you need to be more careful in getting adequate coverage. As UK is an expensive country, you should get more coverage Medical facilities in the country are extremely expensive. Multi-trip travel insurance UK is easily available from reputed insurance companies. Depending upon your requirements, you can purchase the one that best suits your budget.

Multi-trip insurance plans can also be customised according to your specific needs. If somehow, you think that your insurance company is not offering exactly what you require, you can tailor it accordingly. The insurers these days offer you complete flexibility to choose the level of risk and total coverage. Apart from this, look for the emergency phone number and non-emergency helpline while buying insurance coverage.

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So with that being said, you are probably wondering how a savvy investor can use one for the other.

The easiest way that 401k and real estate investing can work together is through the ability to take out a loan against a 401k. The primary objective with real estate investing is to use little or none of your own personal money to fund the investment. Since you are allowed to borrow against your 401k, you can use this to finance part of your investment. When the deal closes, you will receive the amount you borrowed and then some. You can then easily pay back the loan without affecting your 401k. So, basically, it’s like a short term loan you make against yourself. You have access to the funds needed for investing, it doesn’t technically come directly out of your pocket, and when you finally cash in your profits, you simply pay yourself back.

There are some things to note about this method of investing, however. First, you should know that there is a cap on the amount you can borrow against your 401k. This amount is usually $50,000. However, it can be less, depending on the amount of money you actually have in your 401k. Another thing to note is that the real estate you purchase through this method is not eligible for the mortgage-interest tax deduction. There are no tax benefits when you use 401k to finance a portion of any real estate related transaction.

Another option for is to put the money into an IRA, or individual retirement account. Sometimes this is not allowed, but it if is, you will have more flexibility on what you can do with the money. You might receive a penalty for moving your money from your 401K. However, the penalty is usually worth considering given the benefits you would receive through real estate investing. Just keep in mind, the main objective is to only borrower the money for a certain period of time. As you wrap up each deal, its imperative that you repay yourself, and only hold onto the remainder of the profit.

If you are weary of the risks involved, there is a safer way to invest in real estate by using your 401k. Some plans offer the option to invest in real estate investment trusts. These trusts consist of companies that buy and sell real estate, which is a much less risky way of investing in real estate. It also requires less work on the part of the investor since the trust companies are the ones actually doing the real estate investing.

Most people are unaware of the many possibilities that exist by using their 401k’s to invest in real estate. It is a creative way for investors to make a profit in real estate without actually using their own money. The best part about it is that there are both safe and risky ways of investing with this money to yield a profit. The decision you make is one entirely of personal preference.

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One of the benefits to having custodial savings accounts is the ability to access 24-hour hotlines for any issues an account holder may have. This is a service that is given to many custodial savings accounts in many different banks. Custodial savings accounts are also quite ideal for families to teach their children the value of money and saving while letting them handle their own expenses.

Savings accounts are paid interest by such financial institutions, with the understanding that they cannot be used directly in the same manner as money or regular currency. Savings accounts allow customers of banks to set aside an amount of their liquid assets while at the same time earning a set amount of monetary return. A savings calculator is an tool that can really help with determining someone’s own finances. Savings calculators are mostly available online, and are an added service benefit from many online web sites, usually given for free. Using a savings calculator can have one see how a balanced approach to investing can make their money grow.

Savings interest rates vary from bank to bank. Some banks may offer a higher interest rate, but may have a higher minimum maintaining balance required for the account. Some others may offer mediocre interest rates, but with more account holder flexibility. High interest savings accounts may be the best choice for a type of savings account, especially for those who are managing their own businesses. High interest savings accounts are a great way to put in one’s profits, as the high interest rate guarantees that your money will be growing in the bank. For more information and tips on Great Benefits Of Custodial Savings Account visit, http://custodialsavingsaccount.com

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You are probably visiting this site because you have just learned that you are stuck in chexsystems or you have been in Chexsystems and want to know what you can do to get out of it. 

Who is Chexsystems?

Chexsystems is just like one of the 3 Credit Bureaus only this company will provide Deposit Account verification to financial institutions.If you have overdrawn on your account and the bank closed it you will be in Chexsystems. If you have any type of fraud you will be in Chexsystems.

How Long Will You Be In Chexsystems?

A very long 5 years. Unless you have paid your account and the financial institution who put you there requests its removal.Unfortunately, even after you pay your account in full to the financial institution who closed your bank account, does not mean that it will magically delete off of your Chexsystems Record. So before you pay make sure that the Financial Institution agrees beforehand to remove your file from Chexsystems.We have talked with many people in regards to being stuck in Chexsystems and the majority did pay off their account. The Financial Institutions did not remove them from Chexsystems.

Chexsystems the bad guys? Sorry Folks…..

Chexsystems is not a company that Denies your new bank account. Chexsystems is just an agency that collects information from banks about your bad past Banking History.

It is not Chexsystems fault that you are there. It could be a past mistake you made or maybe even a huge mistake made by the bank that put you there to begin with. You have rights so make sure that if you are in Chexsystems that it is Accurate.If you applied for a credit card and were denied, would you blame the Credit Reporting Agency?

Or would you just say ok my credit is bad that’s why I was denied. Chexsystems is basically the same type of Agency with banking institutions. If you again, messed up a checking account or savings account before and the bank closed your account, well Chexsystems gets wind of it and it is reported fair and square. Chexsystems alerts other banks to your banking history. If you find out that you are in Chexsystems, you need to contact the bank that put you there. Unless it is inaccuarate then you will have to Dispute it with Chexsystems.

So you’re In Chexsystems and it is accurate what can you do?

10 years ago you couldn’t do anything. Times have changed and so have your options.It depends on exactly what you are looking for. If you are in Chexsystems and are looking for a Checking Account with Checkbook: There is no way possible to get a checking account with checks right now without paying a fee for the company to find it for you.

Second Chance Checking.

Did you ever consider getting a Bank Account complete with Routing Number, Account Number and Debit MasterCard? This is a real bank account not a Prepaid Card. This can help you tremedously: http://www.secondchancechecking.us . This is great for people who have bad credit, chexsystems or telecheck and their employer requires Direct Deposit. Or simply for people who want the same things that people with Regular Checking Accounts have. This builds a positive credit and banking history because it is reported to the CRAs.

 The Debit Card, The Routing Number & of course the account number. People with checking accounts do not use checks as much as you think they do. 90% use their ATM Card or Visa Debit Card or MasterCard debit card to pay for their bills. You can do exactly the same as them by clicking the above link and signing up it is FREE.

If you have applied for a Bank Account and found out you were in Chexsystems:

Did you find out why? Do you know it is accurate? Is it inaccurate? If it is accurate the only way to get through the next 5 years is use one of the above Accounts. First order your Chexsystems report if you have no idea: You can order a copy of your report from ChexSystemsSMIf it is inaccurate visit disputes for more information.

Free ChexSystems Dispute FormsChexsystems will give you examples of Dispute forms however you can get Free Dispute Forms by going to:

www.freenonchexsystemsbanks.com

To sum this up if you are in Chexsystems there are alternatives. There are Second Chance Checking Accounts.

When you order your Chexsystems Report make sure that everything on your report is accurate if not by law you can dispute this information. The bank that reported you falsely will have to verify why you were put on there. If they cannot it must be removed.

If your Chexsystems Report runs true. Sadly, you are in their database for 5 years.

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 *V V Narendra Kumar

K.Ravi/K.Satish/Masood

Abstract

 t is Business Intelligence (BI)?

Business Intelligence (BI) is a term coined for technologies and applications employed in data collection, access, analysis and information about an organisation’s business. It refers to the use of several financial / non-financial metrics / key performance indicators to assess the present state of business and to assist in deciding future course of action. It is ‘actionable intelligence’.

Business Intelligence tools are being used by banks for historical analysis, performance budgeting, business, performance analytics, employee performance, measurement, executive dashboards, marketing and sales automation, product, innovation, customer profitability, regulatory compliance and risk management. Let us take a look at some of these applications

 1. A Bank Environment

2. Uses of BI in banks

Historical Analysis (time-series)

Banks analyze their historical performance over time to be able to plan for the future. The key performance indicators include deposits, credit, profit, income, expenses; number of accounts, branches, employees etc. Absolute figures and growth rates (both in absolute and percentage terms) are required for this analysis. In addition to time dimension, which requires a granularity of years, half year, quarter, month and week; other critical dimensions are those of control structure (zones, regions, branches), geography (countries, states, districts, towns), area ( rural, semi-urban, urban, metro), and products (time, savings, current, loan, overdrafts, cash credit). Income could be broken down in interest, treasury, and other income; while various break-ups for expenses are also possible. Other possible dimensions are customer types or segments.

Derived indicators such as profitability, business per employee, product profitability etc are also evaluated over time.

The existence of a number of business critical dimensions over which the same transaction data could be analysed, makes this a fit case for multi-dimensional databases (hyper cube or ‘the cube’).

Though it is a major requirement, it hardly receives the attention of BI vendors. For sometime, these requirements were bundled as Executive Information Systems (EIS). But the safe, quantifiable world of computers runs up against a wall of unquantifiable abstractions, value judgments and opinions when designing an EIS system. For one, no two executives are alike. And how information is analyzed, interpreted and acted upon is a very subjective exercise. No surprise, therefore, that BI vendor shifted their focus to terra firma of customer relationship management (CRM) which continues to be the centre of their sales pitch to banks today. Even risk management comes a close second. 

Performance Budgeting

Indian banks adopted performance budgeting as a management tool in the sixties. The success of the tool depended on historical data on which the current performance levels could be realistically based, and periodic reviews to take corrective actions if there were large variances between budgeted and actual figures. Historical analysis and performance budgeting used roughly the same indicators and the same dimensions, except for resource allocation to achieve the budgeted targets.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

As stated earlier, this application is at the centre stage of BI in banking. It is difficult to assess whether it is driven by technology or business. Traditional or conservative banking business models of Indian banking industry relied heavily on personal relationships that the bankers of yesteryears had with their customers. To that extent, ‘relationship’ in the present version of CRM is a misnomer. Let us look into the application of CRM in banking, a little more closely.

CRM is an industry term for the set of methodologies and tools that help an enterprise manage customer relationships in an organized way. It includes all business processes in sales, marketing, and service that touch the customer. With CRM software tools, a bank might build a database about its customers that describes relationships in sufficient detail so that management, salespeople, people providing service, and even the customer can access information, match customer needs with product plans and offerings, remind customers of service requirements, check payment histories, and so on.

A CRM implementation consists of the following steps:

ü      Find customers

ü      Get to know them

ü      Communicate with them

ü      Ensure they get what they want (not what the bank offers)

ü      Retain them regardless of profitability

ü      Make them profitable through cross-sell and up-sell

ü      Covert them into influencers

ü      Strive continuously to increase their lifetime value for the bank

The most crucial and also the most daunting task before banks is to create an enterprise wide repository with ‘clean’ data of the existing customers. It is well established that the cost of acquiring a new customer is far greater than that involved in retaining an existing one. Shifting the focus of the information from accounts tied to a branch, to unique customer identities requires a massive one-time effort. The task involves creating a unique customer identification number and removing the duplicates across products and branches. Technology can help here but only in a limited way.

The transition from a product-oriented business model to a customer-oriented one is not an easy task for the banking industry. It is true of all the banks, Indian or otherwise. It is also true of all Indian banks; private, public, or foreign; and of whatever generation.

A few instances are worth mention here. Head of retail business of a technology savvy new generation private sector bank admits on conditions of anonymity, that there is no 360 degree view of a customer available in his bank. It treats credit card applications from its existing customers in the same way as it does for new customers. A retail loan application does not take into account the existing relationship of the customer with the bank, his credit history in respect of earlier loans or deposit account relationship. And this bank is one of the pioneers in setting up a data warehouse, and a world class CRM solution.

Most CRM solutions in Indian banks are, in reality, sales automation solutions. New customer acquisition takes priority over retention. That leads to the hypothesis that

it is BI vendors that are driving CRM models in banks rather than banks themselves.

Product silos have moved from manual ledgers to digital records. There is not a

single implemented model of ‘relationship’ in Indian banking industry as of today. 

Risk Management

Theoretically, banks transform, distribute and trade financial risks in their role of a financial intermediary. However, the risk management discipline as it is known today has its roots in statistical techniques, which require historical data, both internal and external. Statistical models for measurement of various risks such as credit, market, and interest rate depend on the availability, accuracy and amount of historical data for their predictive power.

Though most of this data gets generated out of banking transactions, it needs to be extracted, cleansed and transformed before it can be used in risk measurement models. Most of the risk management in Indian banking industry is regulator-driven.

Regulatory compliance

Regulatory compliance requirements in the banking industry worldwide are on the increase. Basel II, anti-money laundering, Sarbanes-Oxley, and Sebi clause 49 are a few examples. All these regulatory requirements share one common feature – they are data-intensive. Some of these requirements are now quite stringent about the quality of reporting, making the chief executive officer (CEO) and the chief information officer (CIO) personally liable for the correctness of reports.

Regulatory reporting, therefore, requires a properly-audited data collection and collation process.

However, all these BI applications cater to the needs of the top management in banks. But, line managers have a different set of BI requirements, which differ from those of the top management. These requirements constitute ‘Operational BI’.

3. Operational Business Intelligence

Operational BI embeds analytical processes within the operational business structure to support near real-time decision making and collaboration. This characteristic fundamentally changes the way how data is used, where it exists and how it is accessed. Observes Wayne Eckerson, director of TDWI Research: ‘Operational BI merges analytical and operational processes into a unified whole’. This change is rapidly exposing the limitations of traditional analytical tools.

Operational BI helps businesses make more informed decisions and take more effective action in their daily business operations. It can be valuable in many areas of the business, including reducing fraud, decreasing loan processing times, and optimizing pricing.

3.1 Key characteristics

ü      Caters to middle management and frontline

ü      Just-in-time delivery

ü      Uses recent transaction data

ü      Less aggregation, more granularity

ü      Embedded processes into business

ü      Handles disparate sources and unstructured data

ü      Availability is a concern

ü      Requires different architecture

4. Operational Business Intelligence in Indian Banks

Analysis,

External data

collection

Corporate

Office

Regulators

Aggregations, Analysis and Marketing

Mid Tier Controlling Offices

Branches

Since all the transaction data was created at the branch level, it was aggregated, transformed, (and sometimes fudged!) by the branch to create reports for regional or zonal controlling offices. These reports were aggregated for onward submission to corporate office, and were also used to monitor performance of the branches by controlling offices. Corporate office used to aggregate the aggregated reports from controlling offices to arrive at the enterprise level data, which was used for regulatory reporting, historical analysis and performance management. Most of the external data was collected only by the corporate office.

This unidirectional flow of data from the branches to corporate office via controlling offices was a direct consequence of the transaction data lying distributed at the branches, regardless of the transaction processing system at the branch (manual, partially automated or fully automated).

It would be incorrect to assume that there was no operational BI in this architecture. Yes, it was unstructured, often incomplete, and highly person-dependent. In some ways, it was more relationship oriented than quite a few of CRM implementations of today. In a recent interview, MBN Rao, chairman and managing director of Canara Bank related an incident when he had passed an unsigned cheque drawn in favour of Bombay Electric Supply and Transport by a customer of his branch, after due diligence to find that he was a well-known physician in the locality. It was an excellent example of operational BI.

4. Business Intelligence in Banking and Financial Services

Retain and expand your client base, improve cross-selling opportunities, and increase customer profitability through a better understanding of behavior, needs, and preferences?
Detect and deter fraudulent activity such as money laundering and identity theft?
Address globalization issues?
Better manage the risk associated with investments, credit and lending, and consumer bankruptcies?
Increase efficiency of core business processes such as call center management, loan processing, and electronic trading?
Comply with industry regulations such as T+1 and the Bank Secrecy Act?
Utilize an industry standard like XBRL for a real-time, accurate, and single version of the truth?

Conclusion:

For banks to prosper in today’s complex business environments, specific information and knowledge about all operational details is required. The bank’s operations and processes have to be recorded and appropriately stored. This historical data has to be accessible for analysis and knowledge extraction.

The solution is to create data warehouses and extract knowledge from the data using BI technology. BI can leverage tactical and strategic decision making based on the vast amount of data that is gathered inside bank’s systems. The KBFs in banking are categorised as being customer and risk related. This customer related data and BI is exploited in all possible ways to augment a bank’s sales. The risk data warehouse and BI techniques are the foundation for risk management and regulatory compliances such as Basel II accord. Finally, we presented a review of typical BI techniques and their applications in the banking industry that points to a conclusion that the exploitation of BI in banking is on an upward trend and that more and more data warehousing and business intelligence applications are expected to be implemented in the future at all levels of banking operations.

References/Sources:

Operational Business Intelligence in Banking- Special Report November 2007-Hari Misra, Editor-in-Chief, Finsight Media
Review Of Business Intelligence Approaches To Key Business Factors In Banking Goran Radonić, Croatian Institute of Technology,  Katarina Ćurko, University of Zagreb
Bonding BI with banking-Network Magazine-May 2006-Munish Mittal
TDWI’s Facets of Business Intelligence – BI Best Practices for real ROI-Sanjay Mehta, CEO, MAIA Intelligence Pvt. Ltd.

* Faculty Informatics, Alluri Institute of Management Sciences.

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In order to deliver on milestones within budget you need to have effective co-ordination and communication between the various departments involved, coupled with accurate tracking of materials, expenses and revenues. In other words, you require a strong project management and job costing mechanism built into a robust accounting system.

Business Challenge:

For every project, post analysis and requirement scoping, a detailed design and component selection is undertaken. A Bill of materials is then created which goes to the purchase department wherein it has to be logged in against the specific project. In such a complex scenario there is a major challenge in material management, tracking and planning. Also since there are various costs that have to be incorporated into the project billing, such as material cost, time cost of man hours spent by personnel from multiple departments, you require a system that could ensure accurate time and materials costing while providing estimates to its clients. The billing process is also quite complex as invoices need to be raised at any phase of the project, hence it is essential for project cost visibility at all times in the project cycle.

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Banks and credit unions frequently offer perks for opening a high interest to customers. Banks may offer a high rate of interest, but charge inflated fees when balances fall below their minimum requirements. Some banks assess fees for providing paper bank statements or using the of ATM machines. Most financial institutions charge monthly maintenance fees. These banking fees can cost consumers more than they earn in monthly interest which is a downside offered for. It is wise for consumers to seek out banks which compound daily interest and offer complimentary services and explore savings accounts with low opening and / or minimum balance requirements.

Consumers may want to stay away from banks which only offer online banking due to they tend to have higher interest rates than conventional banks. However some conventional banks do also offer online banking as a convenience to their customers.

Many consumers find setting monies aside to place in the as one of the greatest challenges. Financial experts advise consumers to save a minimum of 10 percent of their income for savings but it might be best to start off with at least 5 percent of weekly income striving to reach the 10 percent minimum. This way you may be able to begin sooner contributing to a high interest savings account.

When considering a high interest savings account, first time homeowners should keep in mind that they must provide a down payment using funds from their savings account. Mortgage lenders prohibit borrowers from obtaining down payment assistant from outside sources unless other than a FHA or VA loan or grant money from HUD.

Consumers should take time to do research comparing financial institutes’ interest rates, fees, requirements and perks and before jumping into starting a high interest savings account. Even though this is one savings alternative to consider it is important to read the fine print to determine if hidden fees exit.

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Accounts receivable, simply means that the money owed by customers to another company for different products or services that have been used but not paid. Accounts receivable are usually in the form of credit lines that have different time periods ranging from a few days a year. Accounts receivable technology advancements have expanded account receivables services the options for processing these day-to-day transactions quickly and accurately.

Accounts Receivable Services:

Sales Order Generation
Invoicing
Receiving payments
Accounts Receivable Report Generation

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To promote the banking exposure to the business market and to facilitate their clients most of the banks are providing special offers to the businessmen. In this way they are attracting the businessmen for establishing the accounts for their business transactions.

Most of the banks are providing the facility of free online transferring of payments to their stakeholders. Some of the banks are also providing the facility of free cross bank online transactions to their business clients. This type of facility cuts down the expenses and very attractive for the businessmen. But this changes from state to state.

Another very attractive facility for bank account holders is free ATM card issuances. Some banks are also offering free funds transfer through ATM.

Banks are also offering the facility of OD (Overdraft) to their business clients.There is a specific limit of OD. This facility means that even if your bank account is running out of cash, you can still with draw money from your account up to a certain limit.

Some banks are also offering special credit offers at special rates to their business entities. This is for promoting the business environment as well as for the growth of the financial institutions. Lending is critically made easy for small scale entities to help them nourishing their business.

Compare Savings Rates Easily Online

To get started, you’ll want to find a reputable financial institution offering an online savings account interest calculator.  Most banks now offer free online tools that are entirely web-based with no complicated instructions to follow.  Look for a calculator where everything is laid out in an easy to understand way, which will let you add up your savings right away. 

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