Over the past couple of years an increasing number of consumers have turned to prepaid credit cards for one of a number of reasons, and these plastic cards are able to offer a range of benefits to consumers. A number of providers offer prepaid credit cards and some recent additional to the prepaid credit card market include Tesco and Paypal. Like a prepaid phone a prepaid credit card has to be loaded with cash before it can be used, and once it has been loaded you can start using it to make purchases in person, online, or via the telephone.

There are many reasons why people decide to opt for a prepaid credit card or payday loan online rather than a standard credit card. These credit cards offer much of the convenience and ease of standard credit cards but have some key differences. Also, you should remember that there are certain charges associated with these cards such as cash withdrawal charges, and you may find that some providers charge to put money on the card and to purchase the card in the first place, as well as to reload the card with money.

There are many people that cannot get a standard credit card or even a debit card in some cases, such as those with very bad credit ratings. Life can be very difficult and inconvenient if you have to rely on cash and cheques, and often this hampers your ability to make purchases by phone or online. Plastic payment cards offer convenience, ease, and security, and with a prepaid credit card even those with damaged credit who cannot get traditional credit cards and debit cards can enjoy this ease and convenience.

Another reason why some people decide to opt for a prepaid credit card is because they want to enjoy the ease and convenience of using a plastic card to make payments by phone, online, and in person, but they do not want to risk getting into unmanageable levels of debt, which is something that often happens with a standard credit card. With a prepaid credit card the money has to be put onto the card before you use the card, and you can only use up the amount of money that you put onto the card, so you basically can’t spend what you haven’t got, which means that you are less likely to fall into spiralling debt.

Many parents like their kids to have some sort of financial back up in case of an emergency, but most parents that provide their kids with a standard credit card are just asking for trouble! With a prepaid credit card you can ensure that you kids have access to limited funds, which enables you to enjoy the peace of mind that comes with damage limitation! At the same time you can help to teach the kids the importance of using cards responsibly with these cards, so that they don’t run into debt problems with credit cards later in life.

Invoice finance is increasingly becoming a more popular way to fund a business as an alternative to the traditional overdraft. Unlike an overdraft, which is usually secured on personal and/or property guarantees and set at a rigid limit, an invoice finance facility is secured on sales invoices and will increase as your business grows.

There are facilities to suit most businesses, from new-starts to long-established, from 100k to 50 millon pound turnovers, from those with only UK customers to those trading overseas. As long as you have business customers being sold to on credit terms, then funding may be provided against their invoices.

There are two main types of facility; factoring and invoice discounting. Within these are a variety of options.

Factoring – a service, not just funding

The services available with a factoring facility can free up a great deal of management time, allowing you to concentrate on what you do best. It will also take away the pressures of managing your cash-flow, as the facility will be growing as your business does.

Up to 90% of the value of your outstanding invoices could be made available to you immediately and credit limits will be provided for your main debtors. Credit control & collections services are provided by the factor and an internet based facility enables you to manage the funds available.

There may be the option of the facility being ‘confidential’. It’s also possible for you to do your own credit control if you can demonstrate good procedures.

Invoice discounting, funding with the funder staying at arm’s length

This is normally for companies who have good systems in place. If the company can demonstrate this as well as being profitable, then the facility may be offered as confidential (your customers don’t know the involvement of an invoice discounting provider).

Less management of the facility by the provider is required and so, can prove a cheaper alternative to a full factoring facility.

As with Factoring, up to 90% of the value of your outstanding invoices could be made available to you immediately, credit limits will be provided for your main debtors & an internet based facility enables you to manage the funds available to you. In addition, you will retain control of your sales ledger management

Charges: Two charges apply to the facilities, a service charge for the administration of the facility and an interest charge, which is calculated for the funds you are using at any time. The service charge is calculated as a % of your projected turnover. The % will depend on the turnover and amount of invoices you are raising.

Providers: There are around a hundred providers ranging from high street banks to independent lenders. On the surface, many appear to offer the same facilities but a specialist broker such as Hilton-Baird Financial Solutions, can ensure that you are introduced to the most suitable for your needs.

Having some knowledge of how to calculate finance charges is always a good thing. Most lenders, as you know, will do this for you, but it can helpful to be able to check the math yourself. It is important, however, to understand that what is presented here is a basic procedure for calculating finance charges and your lender may be using a more complicated method. There may also be other issues attached with your loan which may affect the charges.

The first thing to understand is that there are two basic parts to a loan. The first issue is called the principal. This is the amount of money that is borrowed. The lender wants to make a profit for his services (lending you the money) and this is called interest. There are many types of interest from simple to variable. This article will examine simple interest calculations.

In simple interest deals, the amount of the interest (expressed as a percentage) does not change over the life of the loan. This is often called flat rate or fixed interest.

The simple interest formula is as follows:

Interest = Principal × Rate × Time

Interest is the total amount of interest paid.

Principal is the amount lent or borrowed.

Rate is the percentage of the principal charged as interest each year.

To do your math, the rate must be expressed as a decimal, so percentages must be divided by 100. For example, if the rate is 18%, then use 18/100 or 0.18 in the formula.

Time is the time in years of the loan.

The simple interest formula is often abbreviated:

I = P R T

Simple interest math problems can be used for borrowing or for lending. The same formulas are used in both cases.

When money is borrowed, the total amount to be paid back equals the principal borrowed plus the interest charge:

Total repayments = principal + interest

Usually the money is paid back in regular installments, either monthly or weekly. To calculate the regular payment amount, you divide the total amount to be repaid by the number of months (or weeks) of the loan.

To convert the loan period, ‘T’, from years to months, you multiply it by 12. To convert ‘T’ to weeks, you multiply by 52, since there are 52 weeks in a year.

Here is an example problem to illustrate how this works.

Example:

A single mother purchases a used car by obtaining a simple interest loan. The car costs $1500, and the interest rate that she is being charged on the loan is 12%. The car loan is to be paid back in weekly installments over a period of 2 years. Here is how you answer these questions:

1. What is the amount of interest paid over the 2 years?

2. What is the total amount to be paid back?

3. What is the weekly payment amount?

You were given: principal: ‘P’ = $1500, interest rate: ‘R’ = 12% = 0.12, repayment time: ‘T’ = 2 years.

Step 1: Find the amount of interest paid.

Interest: ‘I’ = PRT

= 1500 × 0.12 × 2

= $360

Step 2: Find the total amount to be paid back.

Total repayments = principal + interest

= $1500 + $360

= $1860

Step 3: Calculate the weekly payment amount.

Weekly payment amount = total repayments divided by loan period, T, in weeks. In this case, $1860 divided by 104 weeks equals $17.88 per week.

Calculating simple finance charges is easy once you have done some practice with the formulas.