The Research Design Associates Blog

Many businesses face difficult decisions at the end of every year to write off excess or aged inventory in an effort to have the financial statements accurately reflect the financial position of that inventory. Don’t take that financial hit this year! You have alternatives that will not impact your balance sheet or income statement at all. You have the opportunity to take those assets that have been a balance sheet headache and trade or barter them for prepaid assets such as media. There are many corporate barter exchanges that make trades like these every day and it is an absolute win-win for all parties involved.

Much to my chagrin I found out that MY small local bank failed last Friday. was interested in a bank serving the local community and accountable to it in preference to multinational investors. I’m a bit stuck on real estate loans backed by land and not multiply sold paper. I remain troubled by the creation of the image of wealth or security in the absence of that value during the housing bubble. No I’m not harking back to the gold standard. We do need new financial vehicles. However I want my checking account, credit card and debit card fees to reflect the cost of those transaction, not to be building a pool of money to drive risky Wall Street commoditized investments.

With the passage of the Durbin Amendment new debit rates became effective on October 1. The amendment lowered the interchange rate (wholesale costs) for debit transactions all the way down to the .05% and $.21 per transaction fees. The new law was meant to save some businesses money, so be sure to contact your merchant service provider to see if these savings apply to you and to insure that they are being passed on to you. There are plenty of business and consumer choices.

Millions of Americans were able to relax when a certain behemoth financial institution announced this week it would begin to charge five dollars a month for customers to use debit cards for non-ATM transactions. Why? Because as much as the profit-driven banks like to ignore them, credit unions with their 91 million members will never follow that model. Since 1909, credit unions have provided service based financial safe havens for their members.