US Financial News

Commonwealth Bank CEO Ralph Norris is to retire in November and will be replaced by Group Executive Business and Private Banking Ian Narev.

Mr Norris has been CEO since 2005, having previously been CEO of Air New Zealand.

Mr Narev, who like Mr Norris is a New Zealander, joined Commonwealth Bank in May 2007 as Group Head of Strategy, where he led the acquisition of Bankwest and the investment in Aussie Home Loans.

Prior to joining the bank, he was a global partner at McKinsey & Co while also being head of the firm’s New Zealand office.

Mr Narev graduated with a Master of Laws in International Corporate Law with first class honours from Cambridge University in 1994 and Master of Laws in International Relations from New York University in 1998.

He joined McKinsey New York as a consultant in the firm’s financial institutions practice working in strategy and organisational change engagements for four of the 10 largest financial institutions in the US.

| Tags: Norris
Posted July 27, 2011 by Hanna Silver under Financial News

As I wrote in an article today, there are many job ads on sites like CareerBuilder.com and Monster.com stating that employers will accept applications only from people who already have jobs or who very recently had jobs.

This second condition I find particularly interesting, and not just because it might strike some as unfair. Its interesting because it may actually favor workers who are less qualified.

If you think about it, people who were laid off recently may be, on average, worse candidates than people who were laid off a while ago.

After all, people who have been out of work for two years or longer are people who were laid off during the recession. That means many of them were workers whose jobs were eliminated simply because their businesses were doing badly, not because they were personally incompetent. And their first year or so of unemployment occurred as businesses were still cutting jobs, not adding them, so almost no matter how qualified they were, they were stuck in a holding pattern.

But more recently, layoffs have been near historic lows and there has been (some) job growth. Read more…

| Posted July 26, 2011 by Admin under Financial News

If you are a new American Consumer News reader, we would like to welcome you to our website. American Consumer News exists to help people become better managers of money and more savvy consumers. We provide daily news covering the companies that consumers interact with on a regular basis, such as Wal-Mart, McDonalds, Bank of America and Ford. We provide reviews of a variety of products, publish press releases relating to consumer issues and have a wide variety of consumed-focused video reports. This website is part of the American Consumer News, LLC network. We would invite you to consider following our ConsumerFeed account on Twitter and subscribing to our RSS Feed. You can always view our latest articles and video content by visiting our home page.

| Tags: Recall Films, Toronto, Total Recall, Total Recall Films
Posted July 26, 2011 by Hanna Silver under Financial News

Get your wardrobe ready for spring for less with up to 75% off at Banana Republic.

What’s the deal?

You can save up to 75% at Banana Republic in their Spring Sale.

How do I benefit?

Simply visit the Banana Republic website or your nearest Banana Republic store to see what’s included in the sale.

Conditions

All items are subject to availability and on sale while stocks last.

Standard UK delivery is charged at £4 on orders under £50.

| Tags: Banana Republic, Republic
Posted July 26, 2011 by Admin under Financial Guru

Enjoy Starbucks coffee at home, with a free bag of ground coffee with any hot drink this Thursday.

What’s the deal?

Order a hot drink at Starbucks this Thursday and claim a 250g bag of ground coffee for free.

How do I benefit?

To claim your free bag of coffee, print off a Starbucks voucher and take it to your nearest Starbucks restaurant on Thursday 31st March.

Expiry

This offer is only available on Thursday 31st March, 2011.

Conditions

All coffee bags are subject to availablilty and limited to one per customer.

This offer cannot be combined with any other promotion and is not available with the purchase of bottled drinks.

For a full set of terms and conditions please refer to your voucher.

| Tags: Coffee, Free Bag, Starbucks Coffee
Posted July 26, 2011 by Admin under Financial Guru

The Australian life insurance industry must starting focusing more strongly on customers, AIA Australia CEO Damien Green says.

“For too long the life industry has been focused on its own objectives rather than selling the economic and social benefits of having life insurance,” he told insuranceNEWS.com.au.

“If we are to tackle the recently estimated underinsurance income replacement gap of $3 trillion, we have to do far more to gear our businesses to the needs of the customer and customer service.”

Mr Green says the industry has to engage with customers, government and distributors to tackle the massive ongoing problem of underinsurance.

“Our role is to protect the consumer and that is the message we need to build on,” he said.

“For too long life insurers have focused on product, distribution and their own top-line success, rather than on genuinely growing value for customers and the community.”

Mr Green says the Australian life industry does not face the problems general insurers are facing from the recent spate of natural disasters.

“Life industry performance is generally influenced by economic conditions and the overall mortality rate rather than single events,” he said.

Long-term community mortality rates in Australia and the US have been falling, but have flattened out recently.

“At the same time current economic conditions in Australia, while soft, do increase the opportunity for life insurers as cautious consumer sentiment and increased savings rates lead to a greater focus from households on downside risk protection,” he said.

Mr Green says a reflection of the significant opportunity facing the Australian life industry has been the recent arrival of another major global reinsurer, Scor Global Life.

“The fact all the major life reinsurers are operating in Australia is a good indication that this is an important market,” he said. “Having the major reinsurer

Read more…

| Tags: Aia
Posted July 25, 2011 by Hanna Silver under Financial News

You know that the tax debt is the result of crisis and other economic problems. Loss of job, sickness, accidents, rising taxes: we all know about the current situation. Divorce is the cause of several reasons that you may encounter economic problems. Anyway, if you have to deal with tax debt problems, then you must find the key to solve them. There are many tax advisors who can help you with them.

You should not stay in the wrong impressions when it came to dealing with IRS tax debt relief. Many believe debtors are sure that the tax debt relief can help you reduce your taxes, but it is not so if you think of depth. If you are looking for the solution of the debt right, then you should consider a payment plan that may be requested by Form 9465, Installment Agreement (IA) Request. You can be sure that the IRS has to agree to your proposed plan, if the taxes are less than $ 10,000 and you are going to pay them off in three years.

Although there are other solutions, you may have, that the IRS may approve or discard. One such solution is part installment that you might consider if you have no other important option to go with. Read more…

| Tags: tax debt
Posted July 25, 2011 by Admin under Financial News

Lately it seems like more and more people are turning to the internet to obtain their financial advice, and the growth in the number of personal finance blogs can certainly attest to that.

Most personal finance blogs have defined their own niche, from sharing different ways to save money, or learning how to invest your money.  Some bloggers dig a bit deeper and explore more specific topics like retirement planning, dividend investing, or real-estate.

Standing Out From The Crowd

To stand out from the crowded space that is becoming the personal finance blogosphere, many bloggers try and avoid basic topics that have already been covered to death on other blogs.  They look for new ideas to share that are both thought-provoking and controversial to help get them noticed.

There’s nothing wrong with presenting contrarian views, it wouldn’t be much fun if we all just agreed on everything without debate.  But the problem with avoiding widely covered topics is that you’re ignoring 90% of the pillars that make up personal finance.  Good financial advice starts with the basics of not spending more than you earn, having some short term and long term financial goals, and then saving a portion of your income to help you achieve these goals.

Yet we often believe as personal finance bloggers that most of our readers already understand the basics so we feel we need to give them something more.  I can see why they feel that way, since most new blogs are typically only read by other bloggers until they build a following of other readers.  It’s understandable to want to show other bloggers that they’re not just rehashing standard personal finance advice that can be found on every other blog.

Getting Back To Basics

As I said earlier, more people are looking online for financial ideas and advice.  They are looking for answers to solve a specific problem.  If you have written helpful articles that solves their problem they will likely find your article in their search engine results.  If they enjoy your unique point of view, they might stick around and become a regular reader.  People probably aren’t searching for what kind of superhero costume you think your favourite blogger should wear, or why your investment account is like molten lava.

True, there might be thousands of articles written about how to save on auto insurance or why you should cut television out of your life.  But none of them were written by you with your own unique interpretation of the topic.

Let’s face it, articles around the internet that get the most engagement from readers are about basic personal finance topics that people are still divided on.  Joint or separate finances for couples, how much should you have in your emergency fund, and how to save on your grocery budget will always be more popular than how to invest in Chinese paper companies.

I guarantee that you have an opinion about the best way to approach even the most basic personal finance topic.  If you want to be controversial and stand out, take one of those basic topics and share your own opinion on how to do it better, or explain why it’s a waste of time.

Be unique, but don’t ignore the basics of personal finance.  We’re all looking for ways to improve our finances, and some of the best ideas are often the simplest ones that we overlook.

| Tags: Finance, Personal Finance
Posted July 25, 2011 by Admin under Financial Guru