When was the last time you went to the mailbox and found a solicitation for a credit card that you currently don’t do financial business (banking, mortgage, car loan, etc.) with, or from a company whose products or services you haven’t utilized? If you are like me and many others, it may have probably been a while and whether you like it or not it seems that it will stay this way for awhile.

As credit has gotten harder to come by and card issuers decide to be more selective on the offers consumers are getting approved for; it seems that direct mail is not quite the marketing option that it was in the past. For example, when it comes to the third quarter of 2009, it was recently reported that issuers sent 71 percent fewer card mailings than that of the same quarter in 2008. Looking at actual numbers in the same time period, consumers only received 391 million offers, which is rather small in comparison to the 1.3 billion mailings sent last year.

So is fewer mailings from issuers that big of a deal? Well, for those consumers that just toss the credit card mailings into the "junk mail" pile the answer is propably not, but for researchers and experts the answer is a little different. For experts the decrease shows how banks have become a little bit more conservative on who they are approving and how their marketing dollars are used.

As many of the consumers within the United States have turned to other ways to pay for goods and services, many in the credit card industry have had to look for other avenues to make money. One of these avenues seems to be putting more focus on regions around the world that don’t rely on credit cards as heavily as Americans. Although this strategy could be considered risky by some, Visa has recently shown that when it is done correctly the profits can be enormous.

According to recent news, Visa has found a sweet spot within the Latin America and Caribbean regions that grew not only their total volume on branded goods but most importantly their revenue. As far as numbers go, the total volume on branded goods within the two regions grew 19% from the previous year to just over $581 billion for Visa’s fiscal year. During the last quarter itself, there was a 15% growth total over the same quarter in 2008, which was $150 billion.

So how was Visa able to post such a huge increase outside of the U.S.? According to company’s president over these regions, Visa is doing something that others have yet to accomplish. They are leading the regional shift from cash to electronic payments, which to him are through product advancements, dependability, and efficiency. There were also new programs introduced to the area such as a new payment technology in Brazil as well as various new educational tools.

When it comes to credit cards and cutting back, the first thing that comes to many people’s mind would probably be the consumer. In many cases you would be right, but on this occasion it is the issuer, and unfortunalty it is not on interest rates or fees. In this case Bank of America, which is one of the largest Visa and MasterCard issuers within the United States, wants to be more selective when it comes to offering consumers their credit cards.

So why would Bank of America want to be more selective? According to the bank, they don’t see any other choice as they believe the card industry will not see the profits that they saw in the past. The reason why experts think they will be more selective is quite similar but were drawn completely off of numbers. Those numbers begin with a $1 billion loss in the third quarter, and a bank leading default rate of over 14 percent for the month of September.

So will we see the "fewer is better" approaching happening with other banks in the future? No one can be for sure. As the largest bank in the U.S., Bank of America was very deep with sub-prime lending which many believe was the tipping point of the economic downturn.

When it comes to contactless payment cards, what is the first thing that comes to mind? For me it is the old Visa PayWave commercials that were shown a while back. In these commercials everything starts off smoothly, as everyone is either swiping or waving their credit cards at a terminal, until someone decides to pay with cash and the world seems to stop. During that time just having a contactless card probably seemed high tech (or at least it did to me), and it didn’t seem that paying for products could get any more futuristic. Nevertheless, one company has decided to take these cards to a whole new level, and light up the card industry; literally.

Thanks to a company named Oberthur Technologies, consumers can look forward to a contactless card that lights up when you make a payment. This new card called the "Smart Lumiere" was designed to notify the cardholder that a transaction has taking place while they swipe it. As of the question on which color the light will be, the answer is completely up to the bank that issues the card.

While some people will argue that this new feature is only for aesthetics, the creators believe it has value that far outweighs the "cool factor" associated with it. They believe that cardholders will benefit from the visual cue that is given as a transaction has taken place, showing that not only are contactless cards a quicker way to make payments but it is also more secure.

Whether it was an increase in interest rate, decrease in credit limit or implementation of an annual; for a countless number of cardholders the latest changes involving their credit cards have been the breaking point. For this reason cardholders have decided to cancel their cards, which for many are attached to accounts that have been used for years. While canceling a card account may seem like the only thing that can be done, an article from the Wall Street Journal, entitled "Credit Cards: Break Up, or Make Up?" offers tips on how to handle higher rates and new fees that more than likely have been imposed upon you.

Some of the tips that are covered in this article include:

• Asking the card issuer why changes were made to your account, and what you could do to reverse it

• Asking the issuer if there is any way to waive new fees on your card, or if you could exchange it for one that may not have a fee

• Switching to a non-reward card if you consistently carry a monthly balance because reward cards typically tend to have higher interest rates

After reading this article you will find that there are many other great tips that are well worth trying if you truly want to keep your card. If none of these work and you have no other choice but to cancel or "opt-out" of your current agreement; please remember that under the new law you will be able to pay off your current balance at the rate the opt-out occurred.

As the need for card products grow within the U.S., now more than ever there is an increasing amount of companies looking for a specific niche’ where they can become the market leader. It now seems that one company is ready to become the top prepaid card supplier for the Hispanic community, and has teamed up with MasterCard Worldwide to make this happen. That company’s name is Univision Communications, and their goal is to connect millions of un-banked or underserved individuals to the mainstream financial system with both a prepaid card and gift card slated to be made available nationwide in 2010.

The cards will be named the following:

• Univision Prepaid MasterCard Card (Tarjeta Univision MasterCard Prepagada)

• Univision MasterCard Gift Card (Tarjeta de Regalo Univision)
   

Univision’s goal for creating these new financial card offers is to empower those within the Hispanic community by linking them with financial services and tools that they can trust. They also wish to give them a product that is culturally significant, secure, and most importantly a cost effective alternative to cash. As for the market size that could benefit from these cards, 106 million people in the U.S are financially underserved; 19% of that number being Hispanic according to a study by the Center for Financial Services Innovation.

As many more changes involving your credit card seem evident before the Credit CARD Act is fully implemented, it seems that the amount of people seeing their credit limits decrease are around the numbers that many experts have expected. That is according to an article entitled "Banks Slash Credit Limit for 58M Cardholders in One Year", which stated around one-third of all cardholders saw their limits slashed between April 2008 and April 2009.

As with the other changes that credit cardholders have seen within the past months, these changes in limits have been made regardless of their credit scores. In fact, more than half of those affected have what is considered "good credit" within the financial industry, and lacked the risk factors that are generally associated with having ones’ limit reduced. The rest of those affected fit the more conventional profiles, which include high credit balances and late payments that issuers typically look at to determine the need of a credit line reduction.

Although the number of consumers who have seen the decrease is surprising to some, a number of industry experts still believe that cardholders will continue to see limit cuts until the middle of 2010. In fact some banking analysts believe that credit lines could decline by as much as forty-five percent for many cardholders before all is said and done.

As companies find new ways to attract and keep customers, it seems essential that they improve their current products or offer new ones to get the competitive edge. Although many people probably do not think about it, the same can be said when it comes to credit cards as well. As we have already seen new products hit the market to help cardholders better control their finances, it now seems that retailers are getting into the mix looking to give their cardholders more value for their bucks.

Very soon new Sears’ credit cardholders can look for a little something extra that they probably have never received in the past from anywhere else. Trying to shake up the retail world Sears recently announced that they will be offering their cardholders unique products. Two of these products include a Sears Platinum MasterCard, which is connected to a Sears Choice Rewards program; and "Credit Score Access" which gives the consumer the ability to access their credit scores. At this time Sears will be the first major retailer to offer its cardholders access to their credit score at no extra cost.

According to the President of Sears Financial Services, the reason for these new products is because consumers need more when it comes to their financial needs. Also they believe that with the recent changes to the credit card industry, they must be able to give the cardholder more retail value to be chosen as the card of choice.

So what is it that you look for in a credit card? For many people the answer to this once simple question has turned into a complex formula that has grown hard to answer. The reason is because now consumers have to think about more than the types of rewards they want; now they have to factor in increasing interest rates, fees and much more. So what is a person searching for a credit card to do? Well according to an article in Forbes entitled "Want A Better Credit Card? Consider A Credit Union, Study Says", a credit union may be right for you.

From this article, it seems that a recently released study now says that credit cards issued by the largest credit unions are much more consumer friendly than those of its big bank card issuing counterparts. In fact the study not only showed that the interest rates were much lower but also found that fees associated with the cards were too.

Before this last year many people have been finding themselves walking through the doors of a credit union for the great rates they receive on financial products other than plastic. Now it seems that the reason consumers are heading to credit unions is because of the credit cards themselves. Although we really do not know the exact number of people turning to credit unions for their card selections, there is one thing that we do know. We know that larger issuers are seeing this and it will be surprising to see how they can regain their market shares that are looking for a more consumer friendly alternative at the moment.

In what seems like the leadership many U.S. consumers are looking to see, it seems that some in Washington have seen enough of the dramatic changes credit card issuers have implemented on their cardholders. According an a recent article entitled "Senate Bill Moves to Freeze Credit Card Rates", Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd introduced a bill aiming to stop credit card interest rates from rising on existing balances this past Monday.

So why draw up a new bill while another bill has already been voted on? According to his office, it is because he and some of his fellow Congressmen believe that credit card issuers have been getting around the protections that Congress set up for the American people.

While this bill is different from a recent one voted on, which calls for the implementation date of the Credit CARD Act to be moved to December. Some experts wonder if this newest bill is simply too little too late. This is because now that millions of Americans have already had their interest rates increased to record high numbers, this could just cause issuers to move or increase fees elsewhere. So as with all the other changes, we will have to see if this actually passes and if so; whether it will actually help the American cardholder.