| Cards: Opportunities Abound In Crowded Payments Field
In the course of a decade, card-based payments have doubled in volume to account for 28 percent of all consumer payments. It's nearly half of the payments pie when excluding the amount spent on auto loans, mortgages and other debt vehicles unsuitable for cards. Credit or debit card use at the point of sale represents 56 percent of all purchases, interchange now accounts for 19 percent of issuers' revenues, and the number of card-accepting merchants now tops 6.1 million. It's obvious that consumers are comfortable swiping cards for groceries, utility bills, morning coffee and hamburgers. But as Celent notes in a new report on payment trends, cards are not close to conquering cash and checks: cards' growth market is $4.5 trillion. Much of that growth is going to be fueled by evolving trends in consumer behavior, added merchant choices and technology, as bank issuers seek innovative ways of building and retaining card customers whose average cost of acquisition is between $50 and $300.
AllState merchant Service, LLC. www.allstatevmc.com 866.541.8472 ...
We will begin training and hiring for the Brooklyn New York AllState Merchant Service (AMS) February 15th, 2008. In 2008 we intend to hire a minimum of 400 new account managers which will build relationships, grow their customer base and will provide proper customized vehicles for merchants which accept or want to accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, debit cards, electronic checks etc' We are committed to reliability, customer service and assure each merchant of a dedicated account representative for quality account management. AMS also offers a variety of credit card processing terminals, pos systems, web based processing systems for retail, mail/ phone order, internet based, and home based and service related industries. AllState Merchant Service, LLC. guarantees customer satisfaction and discounted rates.
BANGLADESH: Rising food prices hit poor
DHAKA, (IRIN): The poor of Bangladesh are increasingly facing food price hikes: Rice, wheat, pulses and cooking oil have gone up as wages have failed to rise in line with inflation.
A recently released Bangladesh Bank Annual Report for the July 2006 - June 2007 fiscal year said wage rates increased by only 4.5 percent compared to 9.8 percent the previous year.
Wage rate increases in the manufacturing, agricultural, fisheries and construction sectors stayed below the consumer price inflation rate of 7.2 percent during this period.
And with the price of food essentials increasing by as much as 27 percent over the past four months alone, experts are concerned.
Manufacturing sector wages increased by 4.3 percent compared to 10.7 percent the previous year, the report said.
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