Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Save your credit card while purchasing online

Many of us owning credit cards are, or should be, aware of the fact that Online Scams are becoming a very notoriously popular phenomena. There are many online scammers and hackers who are waiting for you to make a mistake online, provide your information to an unsecured website, and subsequently, lose money on your credit card. According a recent research by Master Card, online earning trends have considerably increased in cities like Dubai.

Purchasing online is very convenient and has many pros attached to it. So we cannot just advise to stop purchasing online by using your credit cards, rather there are some advices I would like to dart down below for consumers to be more careful regarding their credit cards usage online.

Use Famous and Secured Sites

There are many famous websites, such as ebay, amazon etc., where you can just go and purchase securely using your credit cards. But please make sure that you are using the website directly and not following a link from other website. Because there are many fraudulent websites which may hack your information this way.

For regular websites, in order to make sure if there is a secure connection between your explorer and that site, have a look at the URL: if it starts with [https://], you are on a secured page; if the URL starts with http://, you're not.

Further, Look for a padlock somewhere in your internet browser (explorer, firefox, safari etc). If there is no padlock on the browser somewhere then the page could be unsecure. If the browser does have a padlock, then it means that the website is secure. NOTE: The padlock is not shown on the website page (as this means absolutely nothing), rather the padlock that you're looking for is somewhere on the browser. Here are two examples of how the padlock can look:


Use Alert Pay or Pay Pal for online purchases

These are two very famous websites for making online purchases. You can register your credit cards with these sites, transfer funds there and make online purchases. They are very secure websites and are just like online bank accounts. This way there is a very secure third party involved in your transactions and your credit card information is not directly exposed to the suppliers.

(click below to join these sites now)










Sunday, March 20, 2011

Money Expo Dubai , April 2011


For readers living in UAE, in general, and Dubai, in particular, Money Expo Dubai is a wonderful event when it comes to finance, investments and personal finance, investment banking and other related financial aspects. This event is for everyone i.e. individuals, companies, SMEs, banks, finance professionals, a general consumer, investors etc.

Financial education has always been on the weaker side in Dubai, I beleive, and individuals with heaps and heaps of financial assets do not seem to be in a habit of planning scientificaly to increase their wealth. Students of finance, based on my experience of teaching in a renowned banking institute in the area for a very short period of time, are weak in understanding financial concepts and then applying them in their daily life. So I would like to encourage all and sundry to visit this event and try to have a better understanding of the financial world.

This is The Largest personal finance and investment show in the Middle East and the first ever dedicated event of its kind to focus on the promotion of investment opportunities and wealth protection strategies for individuals, families and small businesses.

The MONEY EXPO will provide an ideal platform for financial institutions to meet consumers and interact on a one-to-one basis. This is the best opportunity of the year to market your products and solutions, educate and empower your current and prospective customers all under one roof. If you have an offering in one of the following areas: insurance, credit cards, mortgages, bonds, forex trading, savings plans, offshore tax, wealth management, debt management, commodities and internet marketing - contact us now to secure your place

So I suggest everyone should visit this huge event to benefit from expert view of Financial Gurus of the region.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Factors to Consider Before Investing

After discussing Differences between Savings and Investments, we will further discuss Investments to see what important factors an Individual Investor must keep in mind before making actual Investment decisions. From First and Seconds Lesson on investment, we have darted down certain points which classify investments from savings, and have noted few factors there that an individual investor must keep in mind to make wise investments, or even, to make investments at all or not.

This Lesson will cover in detail, factors and checks that are or should be backbone of investment decisions.

1. Avoid Hasty and Un-Planned Decisions. In a volatile market and financio-economical situation like present, it has been observed that investors are making rapid investment decisions without involving much planning and analysis. Investors, out of fear and/or lust factor, seem to have ignored and put aside their long term financial goals and all that long planning they had done in a normal market situation. This kind of behaviour must be avoided as it may, and mostly does, add to the already piling up losses. You financial plans may be revived, trimmed and modified but should not be completely ignored as you have had put some hard work and thinking while making those financial plans and setting your financial goals.

2. Draw or Re-Draw a Personal Financial Road Map. As discussed previously in my post on Having a Plan before Writing a Business Plan, we discussed how important it is to know and analyze one's personal financial position before making any kind of financial decisions. We stressed there that an investor(which in that case was for a proprieter) should first thoroughly analyze his current personal financial position, keeping in mind his future plans regarding his personal life, future major expenses, future earning options i.e. both expected amount and timings. One should have enough cushion for one's near and far future personal plans, and then see how one can set aside to invest into a new investment)
If you are already very much vulnerable to a financial crisis, based on your current financial condition and future expectations, you should avoid the idea of risking your finances even more by even thinking of a new investment.

3. Knowledge, Expertise and Skills related to Investment. It is always advisable to invest in something you have yourself knowledge and expertise of, instead of completely relying on Investment Managers(if you are going to hire one). If you think you have keen interest in an investment and it is not very technical to handle, you can even yourself manage your investment and save costs. But again it is more advisable to atleast have some guidance from one. Having knowledge and expertise of a particular investment class will enable you to make better decisions and look for more innovative and modern ways of investments. So even if you don't have know how and you trust a particular investment management company, before investing do detailed research and try to get as much as knowledge as possible of the subject, which in this case is an investment.

4. Asses you Risk Tolerance Capacity. Every investment involves some sort of risk, as this is something that differentiates Savings from Investment. If you are investing in stocks, bonds, real estate--there is definitely risk involved. As compared to depositing in Secured Banks. The reward for taking on risk is the potential for a greater investment return. If you have a financial goal with a long time horizon, you are likely to make more money by carefully investing in asset categories with greater risk, like stocks or bonds, rather than restricting your investments to assets with less risk, like cash equivalents. On the other hand, investing solely in cash investments may be appropriate for short-term financial goals. The principal concern for individuals investing in cash equivalents is inflation risk, which is the risk that inflation will outpace and erode returns over time.

5. Timing of Investment. Based on your Financial Position and your long term or short term financial goals, you should assess if this is a right time for you, financially, to make an investment decision. Jumping into an investment decision just for the sake of it can destroy your hard-earned earnings.
Moreover, you should also consider the timings of the economic cycle. You would need to check whether it is the start, mid or assumed end of a financio-economic cycle as you cannot make investment decisions in isolation from the current market conditions.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

What is Loan Amortization?

Loan Amortization is a process where equal amount of monthly loan payments are made, with an interest portion and a principal portion.

Mortgage loans are prime examples of Amortized Loans. They have very long payment terms e.g. 30 years.  Interest portion, during the earlier months of the loan, is higher and principal portion is on the lower side.

Advantage of such a loan is that borrowers can plan their monthly expenses as the payments are fixed. But there are some disadvantages attached to this loan. In case of a home loan, for example, as interest constitutes a larger portion of the loan during earlier months of the loan, the borrower can only equitize small portions of payments made. Though, this can be overcome by paying extra payments and asking the lender, which may be a bank or some lending agency, to adjust these against the principal only.