Why is American Express Canada Removing Their Minimum Income Requirement?

Amex Canada Eliminates Minimum Income

Disclosure: Opinions expressed here are my own and not anyone else’s or those of the credit card companies. My opinions are based on my own analysis and in reality credit card companies may be pursuing these policies and procedures to achieve very different objectives.

American Express recently removed the minimum income requirement on all their cards, including high-end cards such as Amex Gold and Amex Platinum. Today, I will give my take on the reasons behind this decision and what it means for Visa and MasterCard.

Currently Visa’s elite series card, Visa Infinite, has a minimum annual income requirement of $60,000/00 personal and $100,000/00 household and MasterCard’s elite series card, World Elite, has a minimum income requirement of $80,000/00 personal and $150,000/00 household income. By establishing a higher minimum income requirement, Visa and MasterCard don’t want everyone or those with lower income to hold these elite series cards.

This is my understanding that the reasons behind this: merchants pay higher fees on elite series cards and by restricting these cards to only higher income groups Visa and MasterCard are trying to balance out the higher fees merchants pay because it is expected these groups will spend more than lower-income groups. However, in reality this may not be the case, as it is not necessarily true that high-end cardholders will spend more than regular card holders.

This is where Amex comes in. By targeting those left behind by Visa and MasterCard, they are grabbing a significant part of market share that will turn out positive for their business. American Express is mainly targeting those groups of people.

They are targeting young people who just joined the workforce, college/university students, and middle-aged to older people who want high-end credit cards. The main boost Amex will get will be from younger people who just joined the workforce and students, as these people will remain loyal to Amex in the latter years when their income goes up. Amex is not just looking at business today, but they are looking to grab market share from Visa and MasterCard for years to come.

It will be interesting to see what reactions this brings from Visa and MasterCard. They may decide to idle away and do nothing, watching American Express grab market share from them or they may take actions to lure these groups Amex is targeting by releasing innovative products or by lowering the minimum income on their elite series cards.

Canada Is Back In The Top 10 Of The Least Corrupt Countries

Canada Least Corrupt

Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) tracks corruption worldwide and their 2007 Index was just published recently. 2007 CPI looked at 180 countries (the greatest country coverage so far) and collected corruption related data carried out by 14 expert opinion surveys. Canada is back in the top 10 of the least corrupt countries.

 In 2006 Canada fell out of the top 10 of the least corrupt counties. Critics argued that sponsorship scandal had a major role ranking Canada out of the top 10. I am glad we are no longer in the same ranking as 2006. Canada has always been a corruption free country and congratulations to Canada for maintaining this achievement. I expect Canada to rank even higher on the list in 2008.

Let me give you the top ten 2007 least corrupt countries with their score:

• Denmark 9.4

• Finland 9.4

• New Zealand 9.4

• Singapore 9.3

• Sweden 9.3

• Iceland 9.2

• Netherlands 9.0

• Switzerland 9.0

• Canada 8.7

• Norway 8.7

If you would like to find out more, please visit Transparency International website at http://www.transparency.org. 

First Published: Oct 1, 2007 ADawnJournal.com 

A Budget Travel Tripod - Koolehaoda 56-inch SLR Camera Tripod

Compact Travel Tripod Review

If you are searching for a lightweight and compact tripod that you can travel with, you know how hard it is to find one that is wallet friendly. Of course, there are those high-end brand name ones, but not everyone may want to shell out $300 to $400 for a travel tripod.

That’s where value brand like Koolehaoda comes in. At a fraction of the cost (of the fancy ones), you can have very similar features and functionality that work without burning your wallet.

The one I purchased is a 56-inch, compact, and lightweight. Here are some specs:

Weight: 1290 kg or 2.85 lb

Height: 13.6 inch and 56 inch

One leg can be detached to work as a monopod.

Made of aluminium alloy and comes with universal ball head handle letting you perform 360 panoramic rotation. Flip lock legs are very quick and easy to manoeuvre.

As my YouTube channel www.YouTube.com/ADawn is growing, I needed a portable travel tripod without spending too much, and Koolehaoda is what I decided on after doing my research. Of course, there are other similar low-cost brands, but Koolehaoda is what I picked and have been using.

I also did a Koolehaoda YouTube review on my channel, which you can watch to find out further. Also, here is my Amazon link for Canadian visitors. Full disclosure: If you purchase using this link, I get a small commission.

Like my other reviews, this was not paid by anyone and all the opinions are unbiased and honest. There are some features of this tripod that I did not like, which I mentioned on the YouTube review. Always take your time to do your research to decide before buying anything, so you won’t regret it later on.

What To Do If Your Entrepreneurship Fails The First Time

If At First You Don’t Succeed…

Making your way as an entrepreneur is never going to be easy. Sure, you might have a “head for business”, and that makes the process more manageable without a doubt, but without putting in a lot of hard work the chances of sustained success will inevitably be limited. This is important to remember, because the path to business success is littered with companies and individuals who had good ideas and vision but when frustrated at an early stage failed to drive forwards in the way they would have hoped to. It is easy to become discouraged, especially when there is money in the equation, but the people who find real success are the ones who realize that problem solving is an indispensable part of business.

One of the major problems that arises in business is a slow start. You have an idea and find a way to put it into action. You have good contacts and feel you have advertised well, but for one reason or another there is not the take-up on your offers that you would have hoped for. This is a situation that can arise for any number of reasons. You need two things to overcome this problem, and they are very different things. Firstly you need to be able to analyse well. There will be a reason things didn’t go as hoped. Did you think through your advertising campaign? Have you priced your service too high? Was there some slippage between what you promised and what you could deliver? These are just three reasons, and it may be that you find another reason.

The second thing you need is the tenacity to avoid getting discouraged. A business going wrong can be one of the most painful things to happen to a person, after divorce, bereavement and serious injury. It can be hard to separate the business from your personal identity, so if you feel that people do not like the business, you might extrapolate from that a personal slight against you. In actual fact, there is every reason why things might have failed in spite of you rather than because of you. Be forensic in looking for reasons why things went wrong, positive in applying a solution and honest in sticking to it.

Think about other things that didn’t quite take off at the first attempt but which are managing perfectly well now. Think about businesses and people who even went bankrupt once or more before they pulled things around, like Walt Disney and Henry Ford. That is the level of tenacity you need. No-one’s saying you should push things until you go bankrupt, but if you can rally yourself when things don’t begin encouragingly, you can be successful. In fact, it may be that it is what makes you successful. Every time you solve a problem, you learn something – something which is almost certain to be useful later on in your life. For this reason you need to roll with the punches from time to time. Combine wisdom with perseverance, and you will succeed.
First Published: Aug 8, 2009 EntrepreneurJourney.com

Do You Know Your Debt To Income Ratio?

Debt/Equity

Your debt to income ratio shows your financial health and lenders use this ratio to evaluate your creditworthiness. This ratio tells lenders what percentage of your monthly income can be used for your loan payments (or mortgage payments).

As it sounds, your debt to income ratio compares your debt to income. This is a monthly figure. To calculate debt to income ratio, take your monthly debt payments (minimum payments) and divide it by your gross monthly income.

Example: Monthly debt payments include:

•  Credit card payments, loan payments, car payments etc.

• Don’t forget to add investment income

• Commission

• Rental income etc

Let me give you an example. Let’s say your gross (before taxes) monthly income is $1000

And your monthly payment is $100. Your debt to income ratio is $100 divided by $1000 = 10%.

Tips: When you add monthly mortgage payment to above to above calculation, it becomes the back end debt ratio. If you remove monthly mortgage payment, it becomes the front end debt ratio. Front end debt ratio tells lenders how much monthly mortgage payment you can afford. To qualify for a mortgage, you would require something like 25% to 28% front end debt ratio. With a mortgage, back end ratio should not go beyond 45%. So you can see that in general the lower your debt to income ratio, the better you are healthy financially.

First Published: Oct 17, 2007 ADawnJournal.com