According to the Wall Street Journal, credit unions are creating quite a stir among traditional bankers because they’re trying to lend small businesses more money. Unfortunately, it seems to be an uphill battle.
If you are an ecommerce business and you are paying more than 2.00% + 0.20 per transaction (so $2.20 for a $100 transaction or $0.40 for a $10 transaction) you likely could get a better deal – more info below. Read more
A new survey conducted by Visa recently found that consumers aren’t sympathetic to merchants when it comes to the costs of accepting credit and debit cards. It turns out that “consumers believe retailers benefit far more from accepting credit and debit cards than they pay in costs.” Consumers also believe that merchants look at card acceptance costs as a cost of doing business, just like they look at electricity. Read more
We come across interesting articles from time to time that we want to make sure you know about and these two fit the bill. Here are the synopses: Read more
This is one of many “post round-ups” that will start to show up on Financially Speaking. These post round-ups will allow us to quickly and easily share articles we find relevant to business owners. In this edition we highlight a post on the Consumer Reports website that highlights the hassles consumers face when using checks. We also highlight a post on American Express’ OPEN Forum that puts forward 20 time and money saving tips for business owners. Read more
The initial idea for FeeFighters was mine (Sean) based on my frustration in shopping for credit card processing for another business that I owned. Read more
Josh picked up this tweet from @stillbjorn on twitter: “I am very happy with my credit card processing company. Stop bothering me, stupid salesmen.“ Read more
Every business needs to justify its existence by consistently providing value to its customers. At FeeFighters our business is connecting business owners looking for financial services with financial services companies that meet their needs. Read more
Lately I have been really geeking out on the Federal Reserve website, which has lots of great data. Today I was looking at Report to the Congress on the Profitability of Credit Card Operations of Depository Institutions, a deep analysis of the profitability of credit card issuers. To do this analysis the fed takes advantage of the fact that there are many banks whose primary business is issuing cards and that those banks need to report their profitability and return on assets to the Fed, FDIC and other regulators. Here is what I learned: Read more
Tech Crunch yesterday wrote about a payments startup called Noca. Noca allows customers to pay for purchases using an electronic check. After a text-message verification, Noca uses the ACH system to collect money from the customer’s checking account and deliver it to the merchant. Noca charges 0.25% for this service, or around 1/10 the amount for a credit card transaction. Read more
I am a Costco member and I like shopping at Costco because they generally have great deals on pretty much everything. For example, this morning I went grocery shopping to buy some fish for dinner. Costco had an incredible price on a nice big piece of omega-3 rich salmon, yum, 2.38lbs for $16.68 ($6.99 / lb). Read more
In my last post I talked about why you should leave your corporate job and join a startup. In this post I want to talk about how you can get a job at an awesome startup like FeeFighters.
Outright, online accounting software for small businesses, seeks to streamline business accounting. How are they different from other business accounting sites? Let’s take a look.
Lots of times FeeFighters users ask us what a personal guarantee is and when/why they have to sign on. This week’s kick addresses that issue as Sean talks the basics on personal guarantees.
FeeFighters recently spoke at a utility conference about how its participants can save money on credit card processing. After analyzing one of the participants’ credit card processing statements, we realized they could save 25% or about $30,000 annually on their credit card processing fees.
Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour. My task: inspire students to consider becoming entrepreneurs. One of my pieces of advice was to expand professional social networks by joining LinkedIn.
We were having lunch with our friends Sunir and Mike from Freshbooks, and Sunir mentioned the event SOBCon. I had no idea wtf he was talking about, but he then explained that SOB stands for Successful Online Business.
By the time we talk to business owners, many have been burned by a credit card processor. They reach out because they have been lied to, promised lower rates, and altogether feel cheated.
Many business owners in these uncertain times are looking for a way to turn around their flailing businesses.
We had a great time submitting, organizing, and speaking on our panel on financial institutions and startups. Here are some photos from the event and a great summary from moderator Felix Salmon:
I was reading the New York Times, learning from Thomas Friedman about the myriad of Islamic uprisings that are about to occur and I was presented with the attached ad.
