Breaking Financial News

According to a survey conducted by PrincewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), around 69 percent of the surveyed people use internet to buy financial products. It has been predicted that by 2015 digital banking channel will overtake the conventional branch banking.

The bank branches have witnessed a fall in footfall in last few years because of the introduction of digital banking. Facilities like internet banking and mobile banking have found mass usage among the bank customers.

The banking system in the country has galloped a long way in last few years in terms of technology. Technology has found unprecedented utilization in the banking space and as a result of it a lot of new prospects have come up in the space.

It was also found in the survey that banks have been slow to respond to the demands of the customers of digital banking. Hence, the banks still have a long way to go in the direction.

Tags: Banking, Digital Banking

Prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firm Sequoia Capital is wading into the near $50-billion employee rewards market with its $24.5 million Series C round of financing of online San Francisco-based company Achievers.

The announcement on Wednesday by the venture capital heavyweight signals a heightened interest in the space that Sequoia partner Alfred Lin said is highly fragmented and lacks a dominant player.

We want to be an investor in the most interesting companies of tomorrow and we felt like this would be a company for the ages, said Lin, who will take a seat on Achievers board of directors. Sequoia has had a long history of backing technology companies such as Apple, Oracle, Cisco, Google and YouTube.

The round also included previous investors in Boston-based GrandBanks Capital and Toronto, Canada-based firms JLA Ventures and the Ontario Venture Capital Fund.

Achievers has now raised $38 million since CEO Razor Suleman founded the company in 2002 in Toronto.

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Tags: Capital, Employee Rewards, Sequoia Capital

More and more people have switched to high deductible health plans this year, as their employers look to save money on health insurance.

And these new plans can be money savers.

But as one woman learned, you have to watch them much more closely than old style health plans.

Money Saver…Until She Needed It

Laura Nickell thought her new high deductible heath plan would be a money saver, with monthly premiums much lower than before.

But that was until she needed serious medical care.

Laura said “we paid our $3,000 deductible and after that they started sending us bills for 20%.”

That’s right: She started getting bills even after she met her deductible. “I had over 30 claims at 20%. So it was $20, $20, $20, etc,” she said.

How It Was Supposed to Work

As with most high deductible health plans, Laura was to pay with her own money — from an HSA account — until her bills hit $3,000.

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Tags: Deductible Health, Deductible Health Plans, Health Plans, Plans

We come across a lot of good credit cards over here at NerdWallet, enough to make even the most ardent credit card enthusiast just a bit jaded. 100,000-mile bonuses, free nights at the Hyatt, weve seen it all and recommended quite a few. But have you ever wondered which credit cards are good enough to hold our interest, able to bear the heavy crown that is being a nerds chosen card? Wonder no more: the NerdWallet team eats the dog food and gives firsthand reviews of what cards we keep close at hand.

Our credit cards run the gamut. Tim and Jacob, our CEO and COO respectively, have the travel credit card market down to a science. International travelers both, they consider waived foreign transaction fees a must. Newly minted nerds Anisha and Stephen are fresh out of college and looking to build up their credit scores while avoiding fees, while Lauras wallet is proof of credit unions value and member-oriented culture.

NerdWallet estimates.

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Tags: Cards, Credit Cards