Consumers Cutting Back

U.S. consumers are cutting back on borrowing like never before, according to the Federal Reserve.With banks and card issuers cutting credit, and with unemployment rising, housing prices still falling, and generally poor economic news, consumers are hesitant to borrow. Credit card balances, auto loans and other forms of consumer credit fell by by $21.6 billion in July, the biggest decline on record.
That's equivalent to an annual decline of 10.4 percent, the Federal Reserve said. It's the sixth consecutive month the measure of consumer credit has contracted. In June, it fell by a revised 7.5 percent.Both Visa and MasterCard say the proportion of debit transactions on their networks is growing. At Visa, the world's largest payment network, they've surpassed credit card purchases.Revolving credit, comprising mostly credit card balances, fell eight percent in July. Meanwhile, non-revolving credit fell 11.7 percent

No More Checks

Two grocery chains have stopped taking personal checks, Fresh and Easy Market has stopped accepting personal checks at it's 70 stores in California. Whole Food is testing a check free policy at two of it's LA stores. It will be interesting to see if they lose customers or they just switch to debit cards which is what this is all about. Taking a debit card and accepting a check is like night and day with the check you have to make a deposit, meaning someone has to go to the bank, then waiting for the check to clear or use a check service.
Accepting a debit card all electronic you treat it just like a credit card transaction which it is in reality. This could be the start of no checks at major stores, we will keep you informed

Thanks

Bruce Bryen
Preferred Merchant Services

PCI Rules

PCI (Payment Card Industry) has new rules and fee's going into effect in the near future in a effort to make merchants more responsible for protecting card holder data. Fine's to the merchant can go up to 50 thousand dollars. You as a merchant should not be storing card holder account information, if you must use your processors storage through a virtual terminal where you hold data on your processors servers.