Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – Consumers decreased their credit card debt by 11 percent last year, with the average debt load declining in every state.

That information came from a report released Tuesday by credit tracking and financial education website CreditKarma.com. It analyzed data from more than 300,000 of its users.

“The new year typically inspires consumers to get in control of their finances, especially after the bout of holiday spending that occurred in December. Starting in January, you’ll see consumers start focusing on decreasing debt,” said Ken Lin, CEO of CreditKarma.com.

CreditKarma.com found that the average credit card balance was $6,576 in 2011, down from $7,404 the previous year.

However, that decline came in a climate of weak consumer confidence, which kept spending down as banks continued to tighten lending while slashing credit limits for many existing customers.

While credit card debt was down, so were credit scores.

Nationally, credit scores fell eight points to 660 in 2011 from the previous year.

States with the highest average credit scores are:

• California, Massachusetts and New Jersey — 679
• Washington — 675
• New York — 674

States with the lowest average credit scores are:

• Mississippi — 622
• Louisiana — 635
• Arkansas — 635
• South Carolina — 635
• West Virginia — 637

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Washington, DC, United States (IRIN) – A slump in the amount of money migrants sent home during the global financial crisis appears to have ended with officially recorded remittances to the developing world reaching an estimated US$351 billion in 2011, an 8 percent increase from 2010.

“Growth of remittances in 2011 exceeded our earlier expectations in four regions, especially in Europe and central Asia… and sub-Saharan Africa,” write lead economists at the World Bank’s Migration and Remittances Unit in a brief released on 1 December .

The top recipient countries were India, China, Mexico and the Philippines, but smaller nations such as Tajikistan, Lesotho, Nepal and Lebanon received a greater flow of remittances as a percentage of their gross domestic product (GDP) – Lesotho, for example, relied on remittances for 29 percent of its GDP in 2011.

Money sent home by migrants now represents three times the amount of official development aid to countries receiving assistance and is crucial to alleviating poverty, according to the World Bank.

But the news is not all good. The ongoing debt crisis in Europe and high unemployment in many developed countries “is affecting employment prospects of existing migrants and hardening political attitudes toward new immigration”, the World Bank economists note. Saudi Arabia recently introduced an indigenization program that limits the number of foreign workers companies can hire and the United Kingdom has imposed tougher admission criteria for non-EU migrants.

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– Provided by Integrated Regional Information Networks.

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NYC, NY, United States (AHN) – The rate for the 30 year fixed mortgage rate remained near 4 percent for the third consecutive week, according to Freddie Mac’s weekly survey.

Mortgage rates in general were little changed.

The 30-year fixed rate mortgage rate averaged 4 percent or the week ending Nov. 17, up slightly from 3.99 from the previous week, and below the 4.39 percent recorded a year earlier.

Rates on the 15 year fixed rate mortgages averaged 3.31 percent, up from 3.3 percent a week ago, and below the 3.67 percent recorded a year ago.

While the ailing housing market is showing some signs of life, mortgage rates are expected to stay low for an extended period.

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Charlotte, NC, United States (AHN) – Credit unions are benefiting from a hike on debit card fees imposed by Bank of America (BofA )on Sept. 29. They are taking advantage of the growing anti-bank sentiment across the country as evidenced by the Occupy Wall Street movements.

Another proof is the big jump in applications experienced by some credit unions for membership. In September, the National Association of Federal Credit Unions logged a 350 percent increase in Web traffic to its online credit union locator.

Besides capitalizing on the anti-bank sentiments, credit unions are highlighting their advantages such as no checking and debit card fee, no minimum balance requirements and quarterly paid dividends.

The advantage credit unions and community banks with less than $10 billion in assets have compared to banks are that these establishments are exempt from a new government rule that cut interchange of swipe fees which led banks to impose new fees.

Besides BofA, Suntrust also tacked in fees on debit cards, while Citibank phased out its free checking accounts.

To give the shift from banks to credit unions a bigger push, a Facebook group marked Nov. 5 as Bank Transfer Day when depositors are encouraged to close their bank accounts and transfer their savings to credit unions to avoid escalating bank fees.

This early, BofA is rethinking its plan to charge $5 a month for the use of their debit cards, according to reports. Although bank officials said there is no firm conclusion yet, a new plan being hatched would exempt customers who hold BofA credit cards, directly deposit their pay into the bank or hold a minimum balance from the $5 fee.

Previously, BofA said the fee would only be waived if the debit card holder has a minimum balance of $20,000.

The cardholder backlash is also causing other banks to reconsider plans to impose a fee. Wells Fargo canceled on Friday a test that would charge debit cardholders from Georgia, Nevada, New Mexico, Washington and Oregon $3 a month. JPMorgan also decided against imposing a $3 stand-alone debit card use fee per month.

U.S. banks are estimated to lose $6 billion from the mandated reduction in swipe fees.

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Toronto, Ontario, Canada (AHN) – A study released on Thursday identified the desired retirement age for the average Canadian worker at 63. The report by the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce said 37 percent of survey respondents cited that age as the time when they would likely have saved enough to permanently leave the workforce.

However, many of them upon nearing their target retirement age find they could not afford to retire because of insufficient savings and accumulated personal debts.

Although only 22 percent of the survey respondents said they would likely still have outstanding payables due when they reach their target retirement age, previous CIBC surveys showed that 54 percent actually still have some debts at that time, according to CIBC Executive Vice President Christina Kramer.

The discovery of financial insufficiency leads many employees to postpone retirement beyond their original target date or to cut expenses to stretch their income or future pension.

An International Monetary Fund study said that Canadian personal debt has surged by 30 percent since early 2009. It partly blamed mortgage payments that increased for many Canadian homeowners after Ottawa reduced the maximum amortization period to 30 years from 35 years.

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Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – A rising number of college graduates are filing for bankruptcy protection, says a study by the Institute for Financial Literacy scheduled for release on Tuesday.

In 2006, degree holders accounted for 11.2 percent of bankruptcy protection filers, the study found. By 2010, their proportion rose to 13.6 percent.

Similar trends were observed for holders of two-year associate degrees and graduate degrees. On the other end, high school diploma holders or college dropouts logged a decline in bankruptcy protection applications.

Leslie Linfield, executive director of the Institute, said the new trends challenged beliefs that an advanced education is almost a guarantee for economic success. Linfield said the recession indicated otherwise.

Bankruptcies in the U.S. dramatically rose after the 2008 financial crisis due to less consumer credit available after lenders tightened underwriting benchmarks and lowered loan limits.

Data from the Department of Education released on Monday showed that before students leave university some of them are defaulting on their student loans. For the fiscal year that ended on Sept 30, 2010, student loan defaults went up to 8.8 percent from 7 percent the previous year.

Financial difficulties faced by new graduates and students that led to the loan defaults were particularly felt among those enrolled at for-profit colleges and universities where the default rate in the first two years of payment zoomed to 15 percent from 11.6 percent.

For students enrolled in public educational institutions, the default rate climbed to 7.2 percent from 6 percent. At not-for-profit private institutions, the rate was 4.6 percent, up from 4 percent.

Deputy Education Secretary James Kvaal said there is a strong link between student default rates and joblessness rates..

The data supports an Institute for higher Education Policy study that found that for every borrower who defaults, there are two more who are behind in payments. Only 37 percent of borrowers who began to repay their student loans in 2005 managed to pay their loan fully and on time.

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Toronto, Ontario, Canada (AHN) – The average Canadian pinpoints 55 as they age they would likely be free from debt, according to a Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce survey released on Monday.

The poll, conducted by Harris/Decima, surveyed Canadians between the ages 18 and 64. It found that only 35 percent of those in the age group 55 to 64 had no debt.

On the average, the respondents see themselves paying off their debts within 10 to 15 years.

Thus, those in the age group 18 to 24 said they would likely be free from debt by 32, while those in the 24-34 group placed it at 44, those in the 45 to 55 group pointed at 60 and those in the 55 to 64 bracket said 65.

However, the study pointed out that most of their expectations of being debt free are unrealistic given their current level of indebtedness.

Christina Kramer, CIBC executive vice president of retail distribution, said that more than a planned timetable to get out of debt, Canadians must also make a realistic strategy that would include extra payments allocated for their debt and to minimize interest cost.

Among the 2,000 respondent, 10 percent said they would never be debt free and 8 percent forecast being in debt until they reach their 70s.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – The number of hacked Citi credit card accounts rose to 360,083 from the 210,000 announced earlier, according to Citigroup.

The company released the revised number on Wednesday. Last week, Citigroup said the affected accounts from North America numbered about 210,000 out of its 23.5 million accounts in the continent.

California got the most number of breached accounts with 80,454 followed by Texas with 44,134, Illinois with 30,054, New York with 25,312 and Florida with 20,303.

Hackers were able to steal names, account numbers, phone numbers and email addresses just by adding account numbers at the end of the URL of the Citi credit card web portal. A script that changed the URL tens of thousands of times was used to enter the accounts of customers.

Nearly 218,000 replacement cards were issued to cover the affected accounts. Citigroup also has been monitoring high-risk accounts for illegal purchases.

The breach on credit card accounts was discovered on May 10 and Citigroup started notifying cardholders on June 3.

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