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L’économie, ou l’activité économique, (grec ancien : οἰκονομία, « administration d’un foyer »« de οἶκος (maison, dans le sens de patrimoine) et νέμω (administrer) ») est l’activité humaine qui consiste à la production, la distribution, l’échange et la consommation de produits et services. L’économie est étudiée par les sciences économiques et prend appui sur des théories économiques.

On parle également de l’économie comme de la situation économique conjoncturelle d’un pays ou d’une zone, c’est-à-dire de sa position instantanée dans les cycles économiques. L’activité économique est régulée par la politique conjoncturelle des autorités monétaires et du gouvernement. Les administrations publiques mènent par ailleurs des politiques économiques dans le but de modifier le fonctionnement économique d’un pays.

Un des indicateurs économiques principaux est le produit intérieur brut (PIB), qui permet des comparaisons de puissance économique entre pays.

Sommaire

• 1 Histoire
• 2 Économie par pays, ensembles économiques, et zones
  • 2.1 Économie par pays
  • 2.2 par zones et ensembles économiques
• 3 Secteurs économiques

Histoire

Article détaillé : Histoire de l’économie.

Pour découper l’histoire de l’économie, l’histoire économique recourt habituellement à une périodisation utilisant la notion de « révolution économique ». On recense essentiellement quatre périodes :

• l’économie préhistorique
• la révolution néolithique et la naissance de l’agriculture
• l’économie antique et la lente évolution médiévale
• la révolution industrielle

On ajoute parfois une cinquième période, bien qu’elle soit très récente (moins de 50 ans) : l’économie post-industrielle, liée à la « révolution informationnelle ».

Économie par pays, ensembles économiques, et zones

Économie par pays

Article détaillé : Catégorie:Économie nationale.

Par exemple, l’économie de la France.

par zones et ensembles économiques

On étudie également l’économie des régions, de zones ou de continents (voir la catégorie économie régionale, et par exemple l’économie de l’Europe).

Il est de l’intérêt des pays de se regrouper au sein d’ensembles économiques ou monétaires, par exemple de libre-échange, pour favoriser leur développement économique. Parmi les ensembles les plus connus :

• l’Accord de libre-échange nord-américain (ALENA) ;
• l’Union européenne (voir économie de l’Union européenne) ;
• la Zone Franc CFA,…

Secteurs économiques

Article détaillé : Secteur économique.

La production économique peut être répartie entre plusieurs secteurs :

• le primaire concerne la collecte et l’exploitation directe de ressources naturelles (matériaux, énergie, agriculture, pêche) ;
• le secondaire concerne les industries de transformation (agissant sur les matières premières) ;
• le tertiaire regroupe les industries de services (essentiellement immatériel : assurances, intermédiation, formation, études et recherche, administration, services à la personne, sécurité, nettoyage, etc.).

Via wikipedia

La vocation d’origine des assurances vies est de garantir le versement d’une certaine somme d’argent (capital ou rente) lorsque survient un événement lié à l’assuré : son décès ou sa survie. Il convient néanmoins de faire la distinction entre l’assurance en cas de décès dite « assurance décès » qui verse le capital ou la rente en cas de décès et l’assurance en cas de vie (aussi appelé assurance sur la vie), qui verse un capital ou une rente en cas de vie à échéance du contrat (si décès avant l’échéance rien n’est du à la succession). L’assurance en cas de vie est un contrat rarement utilisé de manière isolée en France.

Ce qui est appelé usuellement « assurance vie » en France est un double contrat d’assurance décès et d’assurance en cas de vie sur une durée unique. Ceci permet de présenter un quasi produit d’épargne, doté des avantages fiscaux de l’assurance.

L’assurance vie permet aussi de faire fructifier des fonds tout en poursuivant un objectif à long terme : la retraite, un investissement immobilier, etc. Elle offre aussi d’importants avantages fiscaux en matière de succession.

Un contrat d’assurance-vie doit avoir une durée déterminée à la souscription, reconductible ou non selon les contrats par prorogation d’année en année.

Sommaire 1 Les acteurs en présence 2 Supports d’investissement 3 Les modes de gestion 4 Contrats collectifs 5 Frais 6 Régime fiscal 7 Régime successoral 8 Voir aussi

Les acteurs en présence

1. Le souscripteur : c’est celui qui s’engage envers l’assureur, il est le propriétaire du contrat et choisit les bénéficiaires en cas de décès ;
2. L’assuré : c’est la personne sur laquelle repose le risque (décès), il doit être consentant pour les assurances en cas de décès, c’est lui qui remplit le questionnaire médical le cas échéant ;
3. le bénéficiaire : en cas de vie le souscripteur est généralement le bénéficiaire, en cas de décès il est celui qui a été désigné par le souscripteur. Il peut être désigné directement (nom, prénom) ou indirectement (le conjoint, les enfants, etc.) mais une clause figurant en dehors du contrat est également valable (sur un testament ou déposée chez le notaire par acte authentique).

Supports d’investissement

On distingue deux types de contrat :

• Les contrats en euros ;
• Les contrats multisupport, qui comportent à la fois un fonds en euros et des unités de compte.

Les sommes versées sur un contrat en euros, tout comme celles placées sur le fonds en euros d’un contrat multisupport, sont garanties par l’assureur : elles ne peuvent pas baisser et sont revalorisées chaque année d’un intérêt ; la participation aux bénéfices (parfois composée d’un taux minimum garanti connu d’avance et d’un taux variable connu en fin d’année). En contrepartie de cette sécurité, les gains sont généralement limités.

Les unités de compte disponibles sur les contrats multisupport peuvent être des actifs financiers de tout type (le plus souvent des fonds en actions ou obligataires). C’est l’assureur qui détermine les unités de compte proposées pour chaque contrat. Les sommes investies sur les unités de compte ne sont pas garanties et présentent donc un risque pour le souscripteur.

Les modes de gestion

Le souscripteur peut choisir entre plusieurs modes de gestion proposés dans les contrats multisupports :

• la gestion profilée : le souscripteur laisse aux experts financiers le soin de choisir les valeurs et la répartition des actifs (actions, obligations, etc.) selon le profil qu’il a déterminé, du plus prudent au plus dynamique ;
• la gestion libre : le souscripteur choisit lui même les fonds sur lequel il va investir ;
• la gestion à horizon, ou pilotée : la répartition entre les classes d’actifs se fait selon un schéma dépendant de l’âge du souscripteur, très risquée au début puis de plus en plus sécuritaire lorsque le contrat arrive à son terme.

Contrats collectifs

La plupart des contrats proposés sur le marché sont dits collectifs : l’assuré est représenté auprès de l’assureur par une association d’assurés. Tout changement du contrat se fait alors par négociation entre l’assureur et l’association. Par opposition, les contrats individuels sont passés directement entre assureur et souscripteur, et tout changement du contrat ne peut dès lors se faire qu’avec le consentement préalable du souscripteur.

Bien qu’un contrat individuel soit donc plus sécurisant pour le souscripteur, il augmente aussi le risque que l’assureur renonce à moderniser régulièrement son contrat (ajout de nouveaux supports d’investissements, de nouveaux services, baisse de certains frais, etc.).

Frais

Les frais que l’on trouve habituellement dans un contrat d’assurance vie sont souvent exprimés en pourcentage des sommes investies et peuvent être :

• des frais d’entrée (ou frais commerciaux), versés une seule fois au moment du versement des fonds ;
• des frais de gestion, payés annuellement sur les sommes en compte ;
• des frais d’arbitrage, payés en cas de changement des supports d’investissement dans un contrat multisupport.

En France, l’émergence de courtiers et de banques en ligne a mené à l’apparition de contrats à frais réduits, avec souvent la suppression de frais d’entrée et des frais de gestion un peu plus modérés (de l’ordre de 1% par an).

Attention, en plus des frais de gestion au niveau du contrat d’assurance vie, le client est également redevable des frais de gestion des fonds d’investissement qu’il choisit au sein du contrat (et également des frais de transaction de ces fonds). Au total, c’est de l’ordre de 3.5% de frais annuels qui sont captés par l’industrie financière au détriment du client.

Régime fiscal

En France, le régime fiscal de l’assurance vie fut particulièrement avantageux mais a cependant connu au fil des dernières années des restrictions importantes.

Les gains tirés d’un contrat d’assurance vie sont imposés uniquement en cas de rachat (retrait de fonds), total ou partiel. Ils sont calculés au prorata des sommes retirées : en rachetant 10% du total du contrat, l’imposition ne se fera que sur 10% des intérêts générés depuis son ouverture.

Pour les contrats ouverts ou versements effectués depuis 1998, le contribuable peut opter soit pour l’intégration à l’impôt sur le revenu de ses gains, soit pour un prélèvement libératoire selon barème suivant :

Age du contrat	Taux	Abattement
Moins de 4 ans	35%	(aucun)
Entre 4 à 8 ans	15%	(aucun)
Plus de 8 ans	7,5%	4600 € par an (9200 € pour un couple marié)

L’abattement de 4600€ est acquis quel que soit le choix d’imposition (IR ou Prélèvement libératoire) pour l’ensemble des contrats du contribuable. Pour éviter l’impôt, il est judicieux de faire un retrait annuel dont les intérêts ne dépassent pas le montant de l’abattement. S’ajoute à cette imposition des prélèvements sociaux (de 11% en 2006) prélevés soit annuellement sur un contrat en euros, soit au moment d’un rachat sur les contrats multisupports (ce qui est plus avantageux).

Un contrat d’assurance-vie entre dans l’assiette de l’impôt de solidarité sur la fortune. À noter que contrairement à une enveloppe fiscale comme par exemple le PEA, il n’existe pas de plafond de versement ni de restriction sur les retraits ou versements.

En cas de rente viagère. Celle-ci sera soumise à l’impôt sur le revenu pour 70% de son montant en cas de mise en route avant 50 ans, pour 50% de 50 à 59 ans, pour 40% de 60 à 69 ans, pour 30% à 70 ans et plus. Elle sera aussi sujette aux prélèvements sociaux.

Le régime fiscal de l’assurance vie est différent pour les Français vivants à l’étranger (expatriés), dans ce cas il y a dans la plupart des cas une convention entre la France et le pays concerné pour éviter une double imposition: Fiscalité de l’assurance vie pour les non résident

Régime successoral

Lors de l’ouverture d’un contrat d’assurance-vie, le souscripteur peut désigner un ou des bénéficiaires. En cas de décès de l’assuré, les bénéficiaires reçoivent l’intégralité des capitaux avec une fiscalité succéssorale qui dépend de :

• la date d’ouverture du contrat
• la date de versement des primes
• l’âge du souscripteur

Ces différents cas sont résumés dans le tableau ci-dessous :

		Contrat souscrit avant le 20 novembre 1991	Contrat souscrit à compter du 20 novembre 1991
Primes versées avant le 13 octobre 1998	avant l’âge de 70 ans	exonération totale des capitaux transmis.	exonération totale des capitaux transmis.
Primes versées après le 13 octobre 1998	avant l’âge de 70 ans	abattement de 152500€ sur le capital transmis à chaque bénéficiaire et taxation de 20% au-delà. Pour le conjoint pas d’abattement (exonération totale : paquet fiscal 08/2007)	abattement de 152500€ sur le capital transmis à chaque bénéficiaire et taxation de 20% au-delà. Pour le conjoint pas d’abattement (exonération totale : paquet fiscal 08/2007)

via Wikipedia

Le rachat credit : la solution idéale

Grâce au rachat credit, vous pouvez réduire vos mensualités de remboursement de vos credit de 30 à 65% selon les cas.

Le rachat credit

Vous avez contracté trop de credit et le cumul des mensualités de remboursement de vos credit n’est plus en rapport avec vos revenus actuels.
( changement de situation professionnelle, évènement familial, dépenses imprévus due à un accident de la vie etc…) et vous souhaitez réorganiser votre budget en fonction des ces critères, le rachat de credit est une solution idéale pour ce genre de situations.

Principe du rachat de crédit

Notre société de rachat credit se retourne vers tous les organismes de
credit auprès desquels vous avez contracté vos credit et rembourse tous
vos credit un à un, ensuite nous mettons en place un nouveau credit avec une mensualite unique de remboursement, c’est ce qu’on appel le
rachat credit ou le regroupement de credit.

Le rachat de credit pour réaliser un achat important

Vous avez envie de faire des travaux, acheter une piscine, ou une voiture,
Vous avez déjà des credit en cours et votre niveau d’endettement élevé. Grâce au rachat credit vous pouvez abaisser votre endettement de manière considérable et bénéficier d’une trésorerie pour réaliser vos projet ( travaux, auto, voyage etc… ).

Le rachat de credit pour économiser
et épargner

Le rachat credit peut être utilisé pour épargner car la réduction des mensualités de credit obtenu après le rachat de credit est considérable
et vous donnera un pouvoir d’achat accru.
Dans certains cas la reduction des mensualités de credit peut etre
supérieur a 50%.

Le rachat credit personnel

Le rachat credit personnel vous permet de regrouper tous vos credit personnel en un seul vous permettant ainsi de réduire fortement vos mensualités et de rééchelonner vos credit personnel sur une durée plus adaptée à votre situation.

Le rachat credit personnel vous facilite la vie car vous n’avez plus qu’une seule et unique mensualité de credit et vous pouvez bénéficier d’une trésorerie pour réaliser un projet qui vous tient à cœur ou tout simplement faire des achats. Retrouver la sérénité en reduisant fortement votre endettement grâce au rachat de credit.

Rachat credit immobilier

Vous êtes propriétaire, vos mensualités de credit sont trop lourdes et vous
souhaitez les réduire (credit immobilier, credit travaux, credit auto, credit consommation, credit personnel, credit revolving).

Le rachat credit immobilier vous permet de regrouper tous vos credit
immobilier + credit personnel en 1 seul credit avec une mensualité unique.
Avec le rachat credit, tout devient plus simple, une mensualité unique de remboursement, un credit unique, un interlocuteur unique.

Le rachat credit à la consommation

Regroupez tous vos credit à la consommation et réduisez vos mensualités
jusqu’à 60%. Le rachat credit vous permet de retrouver un équilibre
financier la nouvelle mensualité de credit obtenu après le rachat vous
permet de respirer financièrement ainsi vous pouvez de nouveau épargner
ou tout simplement faire des achats.

Rachat crédit consommation + immobilier

Le rachat credit consommation + immobilier vous permet de regrouper
vos credit immobilier et consommation vous bénéficierez ainsi d’un nouveau
credit avec le taux d’un credit immobilier. les frais du rachat de credit sont
largement compensés par la baisse des taux obtenu après le rachat credit.

A credit card is a system of payment, named after the small plastic card issued to users of the system. A credit card is different from a debit card in that it does not remove money from the user’s account after every transaction. In the case of credit cards, the issuer lends money to the consumer (or the user). It is also different from a charge card (though this name is sometimes used by the public to describe credit cards), which requires the balance to be paid in full each month. In contrast, a credit card allows the consumer to ‘revolve’ their balance, at the cost of having interest charged. Most credit cards are the same shape and size, as specified by the ISO 7810 standard.

How Credit Cards work

A user is issued a credit card after an account has been approved by the credit provider (often a general bank, but sometimes a captive bank created to issue a particular brand of credit card, such as Wells Fargo or American Express Centurion Bank), with which the user will be able to make purchases from merchants accepting that credit card up to a pre-established credit limit.

When a purchase is made, the credit card user agrees to pay the card issuer. The cardholder indicates their consent to pay, by signing a receipt with a record of the card details and indicating the amount to be paid or by entering a PIN. Also, many merchants now accept verbal authorizations via telephone and electronic authorization using the Internet, known as a customer not present (CNP) transaction.

Electronic verification systems allow merchants to verify that the card is valid and the credit card customer has sufficient credit to cover the purchase in a few seconds, allowing the verification to happen at time of purchase. The verification is performed using a credit card payment terminal or Point of Sale (POS) system with a communications link to the merchant’s acquiring bank. Data from the card is obtained using from a magnetic stripe or chip on the card; the later system is commonly known as Chip and PIN, but is more technically an EMV card.

Other variations of verification systems are used by eCommerce merchants to determine if the user’s account is valid and able to accept the charge. These will typically involve the cardholder providing additional information, such as the security code printed on the back of the card, or the address of the cardholder.

Each month, the credit card user is sent a statement indicating the purchases undertaken with the card, any outstanding fees, and the total amount owed. After receiving the statement, the cardholder may dispute any charges that he or she thinks are incorrect (see Fair Credit Billing Act for details of the US regulations). Otherwise, the cardholder must pay a defined minimum proportion of the bill by a due date, or may choose to pay a higher amount up to the entire amount owed. The credit provider charges interest on the amount owed (typically at a much higher rate than most other forms of debt). Some financial institutions can arrange for automatic payments to be deducted from the user’s accounts.

Credit card issuers usually waive interest charges if the balance is paid in full each month, but typically will charge full interest on the entire outstanding balance from the date of each purchase if the total balance is not paid.

For example, if a user had a $1,000 outstanding balance and pays it in full, there would be no interest charged. If, however, even $1.00 of the total balance remained unpaid, interest would be charged on the full $1,000 from the date of purchase until the payment is received. The precise manner in which interest is charged is usually detailed in a cardholder agreement which may be summarized on the back of the monthly statement.^[1]

The credit card may simply serve as a form of revolving credit, or it may become a complicated financial instrument with multiple balance segments each at a different interest rate, possibly with a single umbrella credit limit, or with separate credit limits applicable to the various balance segments. Usually this compartmentalization is the result of special incentive offers from the issuing bank, either to encourage balance transfers from cards of other issuers, or to encourage more spending on the part of the customer. In the event that several interest rates apply to various balance segments, payment allocation is generally at the discretion of the issuing bank, and payments will therefore usually be allocated towards the lowest rate balances until paid in full before any money is paid towards higher rate balances. Interest rates can vary considerably from card to card, and the interest rate on a particular card may jump dramatically if the card user is late with a payment on that card or any other credit instrument, or even if the issueing bank decides to raise its revenue. As the rates and terms vary, services have been set up allowing users to calculate savings available by switching cards, which can be considerable if there is a large outstanding balance (see external links for some on-line services).

Because of intense competition in the credit card industry, credit providers often offer incentives such as frequent flier points, gift certificates, or cash back (typically up to 1 percent based on total purchases) to try to attract customers to their program.

Low interest credit cards or even 0% interest credit cards are available. The only downside to consumers is that the period of low interest credit cards is limited to a fixed term, usually between 6 and 12 months after which a higher rate is charged. However, services are available which alert credit card holders when their low interest period is due to expire. Most such services charge a monthly or annual fee.

Grace period

A credit card’s grace period is the time the customer has to pay the balance, before interest is charged to the balance. Grace periods vary, but usually range from 10 to 55 days depending on the type of credit card and the issuing bank.

The merchant’s side

For merchants, a credit card transaction is often more secure than other forms of payment, such as cheques, because the issuing bank commits to pay the merchant the moment the transaction is verified. The bank charges a commission (discount fee), to the merchant for this service and there may be a certain delay before the agreed payment is received by the merchant. In addition, a merchant may be penalized or have their ability to receive payment using that credit card restricted if there are too many cancellations or reversals of charges.

In some countries, like the Nordic countries, banks guarantee payment on stolen cards only if an ID card is checked. In these countries merchants therefore usually ask for ID.

This process involves the following parties:

Cardholder: the owner of the card used to make a purchase

Merchant: the business accepting credit card payments for products or services sold to the cardholder

Acquirer: the financial institution or other organization that provides card processing services to the merchant

Card association: a network such as VISA® or MasterCard® (and others) that acts as a gateway between the acquirer and issuer for authorizing and funding transactions

Issuer: the financial institution or other organization that issued the credit card to the cardholder

The flow of information and money between these parties—always through the card associations—is known as the interchange, and it consists of a few steps:

Authorization

The cardholder pays for the purchase and the merchant submits the transaction to the acquirer. The acquirer verifies with the issuer—almost instantly—that the card number and transaction amount are both valid, and then processes the transaction for the cardholder.

Batching

After the transaction is authorized it is then stored in a batch, which the merchant sends to the acquirer later to receive payment (usually at the end of the day).

Clearing and settlement

The acquirer sends the transactions in the batch through the card association, which debits the issuers for payment and credits the acquirer. In effect, the issuers pay the acquirer for the transactions.

Funding

Once the acquirer has been paid, the merchant receives payment. The amount the merchant receives is equal to the transaction amount minus the discount rate, which is the fee the merchant pays the acquirer for processing the transaction.

The entire process, from authorization to funding, usually takes about 3 days. However, Merchant Card Processing from Clearpay Processing offers next-day deposits to customers subject to type of banking account, e.g. with Clearpay Processing business checking account this would be the case.

In the event of a chargeback (when there’s an error in processing the transaction or the cardholder disputes the transaction), the issuer returns the transaction to the acquirer for resolution. The acquirer then forwards the chargeback to the merchant, who must either accept the chargeback or contest it.

Secured credit cards

A secured credit card is a type of credit card secured by a deposit account owned by the cardholder. Typically, the cardholder must deposit between 100% and 200% of the total amount of credit desired. Thus if the cardholder puts down $1000, he or she will be given credit in the range of $500–$1000. In some cases, credit card issuers will offer incentives even on their secured card portfolios. In these cases, the deposit required may be significantly less than the required credit limit, and can be as low as 10% of the desired credit limit. This deposit is held in a special savings account.

The cardholder of a secured credit card is still expected to make regular payments, as he or she would with a regular credit card, but should he or she default on a payment, the card issuer has the option of recovering the cost of the purchases paid to the merchants out of the deposit. The advantage of the secured card for an individual with negative or no credit history is that most companies report regularly to the major credit bureaus. This allows for rebuilding of positive credit history.

Although the deposit is in the hands of the credit card issuer as security in the event of default by the consumer, the deposit will not be credited simply for missing one or two payments. Usually the deposit is only used as an offset when the account is closed, either at the request of the customer or due to severe delinquency (150 to 180 days). This means that an account which is less than 150 days delinquent will continue to accrue interest and fees, and could result in a balance which is much higher than the actual credit limit on the card. In these cases the total debt may far exceed the original deposit and the cardholder not only forfeits their deposit but is left with an additional debt.

Most of these conditions are usually described in a cardholder agreement which the cardholder signs when their account is opened.

Secured credit cards are an option to allow a person with a poor credit history or no credit history to have a credit card which might not otherwise be available. They are often offered as a means of rebuilding one’s credit. Secured credit cards are available with both Visa and MasterCard logos on them. Fees and service charges for secured credit cards often exceed those charged for ordinary non-secured credit cards, however, for people in certain situations, (for example, after charging off on other credit cards, or people with a long history of delinquency on various forms of debt), secured cards can often be less expensive in total cost than unsecured credit cards, even including the security deposit.

Features

As well as convenient, accessible credit, the cards offer consumers an easy way to track expenses, which is necessary for both monitoring personal expenditures and the tracking of work-related expenses for taxation and reimbursement purposes. Credit cards are accepted worldwide, and are available with a large variety of credit limits, repayment arrangement, and other perks (such as rewards schemes in which points earned by purchasing goods with the card can be redeemed for further goods and services or credit card cashback).

Some countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and France limit the amount for which a consumer can be held liable due to fraudulent transactions as a result of a consumer’s credit card being lost or stolen.

Security

The low security of the credit card system presents countless opportunities for fraud. This opportunity has created a huge black market in stolen credit card numbers, which are generally used quickly before the cards are reported stolen.

The goal of the credit card companies, as they say, is not to eliminate fraud, but to "reduce it to manageable levels", such that the total cost of both fraud and fraud prevention is minimized^{[citation needed]}. This implies that high-cost low-return fraud prevention measures will not be used if their cost exceeds the potential gains from fraud reduction.

Most Internet fraud is done through the use of stolen credit card information which is obtained in many ways, the simplest being copying information from retailers, either online or offline. There have been many cases of crackers obtaining huge quantities of credit card information from company databases. It is not unusual for employees of companies that deal with millions of customers to sell credit card information to criminals^{[citation needed]}.

Despite efforts to improve security for remote purchases using credit cards, systems with security holes are usually the result of poor implementations of card acquisition by merchants. For example, a website that uses SSL to encrypt card numbers from a client may simply email the number from the webserver to someone who manually processes the card details at a card terminal. Naturally, anywhere card details become human-readable before being processed at the acquiring bank is a security risk. However, many banks offer systems such as ClearCommerce, where encrypted card details captured on a merchant’s webserver can be sent directly to the payment processor.

Controlled Payment Numbers are another option for protecting one’s credit card number: they are "alias" numbers linked to one’s actual card number, generated as needed, valid for a relatively short time, with a very low limit, and typically only valid with a single merchant.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is the agency responsible for prosecuting criminals who engage in credit card fraud in the United States, but they do not have the resources to pursue all criminals. In general, they only prosecute in cases exceeding US$5,000 in value. Three improvements to card security have been introduced to the more common credit card networks but none has proven to help reduce credit card fraud so far. First, the on-line verification system used by merchants is being enhanced to require a 4 digit Personal Identification Number (PIN) known only to the card holder. Second, the cards themselves are being replaced with similar-looking tamper-resistant smart cards which are intended to make forgery more difficult. The majority of smartcard (IC card) based credit cards comply with the EMV (Europay MasterCard Visa) standard. Third, an additional 3 or 4 digit code is now present on the back of most cards, for use in "card not present" transactions. See CVV2 for more information.

Profits and losses

In recent times, credit card portfolios have been very profitable for banks, largely due to the booming economy of the late nineties. However, in the case of credit cards, such high returns go hand in hand with risk, since the business is essentially one of making unsecured (uncollateralized) loans, and thus dependent on borrowers not to default in large numbers.

Costs

Credit card issuers (banks) have several types of costs:

Interest expenses

Banks generally borrow the money that they then lend to their customers. As they receive very low-interest loans from other firms, they may borrow as much as their customers require, while lending their capital to other borrowers at higher rates. If the card issuer charges 15% on money lent to users, and it costs 5% to borrow the money to lend, and the balance sits with the cardholder for a year, the issuer earns 10% on the loan. This 5% difference is the "interest expense" and the 10% is the "net interest margin".

Operating costs

This is the cost of running the credit card portfolio, including everything from paying the executives who run the company to printing the plastics, to mailing the statements, to running the computers that keep track of every cardholder’s balance, to taking the many phone calls which cardholders place to their issuer, to tracking down fraud rings, to protect the customers. Depending on the issuer, marketing programs are also a significant portion of expenses.

Charge offs

</http://www.cardreport.com/credit-problems/charge-off.html>When a consumer becomes severely delinquent on a debt (often at the point of six months without payment), the creditor may declare the debt to be a charge-off. It will then be listed as such on the debtor’s credit bureau reports (Equifax lists "R9" in the "Status" column.) It is one of the worst possible items to have on your file. The item will include relevant dates, and the amount of the bad debt.

A charge-off is considered to be "written off as uncollectable." A major reason for this involves taxes. Every year, corporations file a Profit And Loss Statement with the Internal Revenue Service. It is also made available to federal and state regulators, and to shareholders. All of the year’s bad debts (individual charged-off accounts) are added together as an item in the "Loss" section of the P & L Statement, and are deducted from the corporation’s tax return, much like other business expenses. To banks, bad debts and even fraud are simply part of the cost of doing business.

However, the debt is still legally valid, and the creditor can attempt to collect the full amount. This includes contacts from internal collections staff, or more likely, an outside collection agency. If the amount is large (generally over $1500 - $2000), there is the possibility of a lawsuit or arbitration.

In the US, as the charge off number climbs or becomes erratic, officials from the Federal Reserve take a close look at the finances of the bank and may impose various operating strictures on the bank, and in the most extreme cases, may close the bank entirely.

Rewards

Many credit card customers receive rewards, such as frequent flier points, gift certificates, or cash back as an incentive to use the card. Rewards are generally tied to purchasing an item or service on the card, which may or may not include balance transfers, cash advances, or other special uses. Depending on the type of card, rewards will generally cost the issuer between 0.25% and 2.0% of the spend. However, most rewards points are accrued as a liability on a company’s balance sheet and expensed at the time of reward redemption. As a result, some issuers discourage redemption by forcing the cardholder to call customer service for rewards. Others encourage redemption for lower cost merchandise; instead of an airline ticket, which is very expensive to an issuer, the cardholder may be encouraged to redeem for a gift certificate instead. With a fractured and competitive environment, rewards points cut dramatically into an issuer’s bottom line, and rewards points and related incentives must be carefully managed to ensure a profitable portfolio.

Fraud

Where a card is stolen, or an unauthorized duplicate made, most card issuers will refund some or all of the charges that the customer has received for things they did not buy. These refunds will, in some cases, be at the expense of the merchant, especially in mail order cases where the merchant cannot claim sight of the card, but in other cases, these costs must be borne by the card issuer. In several countries, merchants will lose the money if no ID card was asked for, therefore merchants usually require ID card in these countries.

The cost of fraud is high; in the UK in 2004 it was over £500 million.^[2] Credit card companies generally guarantee the merchant will be paid on legitimate transactions regardless of whether the consumer pays their credit card bill.

Revenues

Offsetting costs are the following revenues:

Interchange fees

Interchange fees are charged by the merchant’s acquirer to a card-accepting merchant as component of the so-called merchant discount rate (also referred to as "merchant service fee"). The merchant pays a merchant discount fee that is typically 2 to 3 percent (this is negotiated, but will vary not only from merchant to merchant, but also from card to card, with business cards and rewards cards generally costing the merchants more to process), which is why some merchants prefer cash, debit cards, or even cheques. The majority of this fee, called the interchange fee, goes to the issuing bank, but parts of it go to the processing network, the card association (American Express, Visa, MasterCard, etc.), and the merchant’s acquirer. With a corporate card, the interchange is also often shared by the company in whose name the card is issued as an incentive to use that issuer’s card instead of someone else’s.

The interchange fee that applies to a particular merchant is a function of many variables including the type of merchant, the merchant’s average ticket dollar amount, whether the cards are physically present, if the card’s magnetic stripe is read or if the transaction is hand-keyed, the specific type of card, when the transaction is settled, the authorized and settled transaction amounts, etc. For a typical credit card issuer, interchange fee revenues may represent about fifteen percent of total revenues, but this will vary greatly with the type of customers represented in their portfolio. Customers who carry high balances may generate low interchange revenue due to credit line limitations, while customers who use their cards for business and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on their cards while paying off balances every month will have very healthy interchange revenues.

Contract terms

Credit card issuers reserve the right to change the terms of the contract at any time, even for customers who maintain a perfect payment record.

Industry’s jargon for customer categories

Customers who do not pay in full the amount owed on their monthly statement (the "balance") by the due date (that is, at the end of the "grace period") and are not in a promotional period owe interest ("finance charges") are known in the industry as "revolvers". Those who pay in full (pay the entire balance) are known in the industry as "transactors", "convenience users" or "deadbeats". Those that shift usage of their credit cards or transfer balances frequently are known in the industry as "rate surfers" or "gamers".

Interest on outstanding balances

Interest charges vary widely from card issuer to card issuer. Often, there are "teaser" rates in effect for initial periods of time (as low as zero percent for, say, six months), whereas regular rates can be as high as 40 percent. In the U.S. there’s no federal limit on the interest or late fees credit card issuers can charge; the interest rates are set by the states, with some states like South Dakota having no ceiling on interest rates and fees, inviting some banks to establish their credit card operations there. Other states like Delaware have very weak usury laws. See Usury laws.

Fees charged to customers

The major fees are for:

• Late payments
• Charges that result in exceeding the credit limit on the card (whether done deliberately or by mistake)
• Returned check fees or payment processing fees (eg phone payment fee)
• Cash advances and convenience checks (often 3% of the amount)
• Transactions in a foreign currency (as much as 3% of the amount). A few financial institutions do not charge a fee for this.
• Membership fees (annual or monthly), sometimes a percentage of the credit limit.

Neutral consumer resources

Canada

The Government of Canada maintains a database of the fees, features, interest rates and reward programs of nearly 200 credit cards available in Canada. This database is updated on a quarterly basis with information supplied by the credit card issuing companies. Information in the database is published every quarter on the website of the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC).

Information in the database is published in two formats. It is available in PDF comparison tables that break down the information according to type of credit card, allowing the reader to compare the features of, for example, all the student credit cards in the database.

The database also feeds into an interactive tool on the FCAC website. The interactive tool uses several interview-type questions to build a profile of the user’s credit card usage habits and needs, eliminating unsuitable choices based on the profile, so that the user is presented with a small number of credit cards and the ability to carry out detailed comparisons of features, reward programs, interest rates, etc.

History

The credit card was the successor of a variety of merchant credit schemes. It was first used in the 1920s, in the United States, specifically to sell fuel to a growing number of automobile owners. In 1938 several companies started to accept each other’s cards.

The concept of using a card for purchases was invented in 1887 by Edward Bellamy and described in his utopian novel Looking Backward. Bellamy uses the explicit term "Credit Card" eleven times in his novel (Chapters 9, 10, 11, 13, 25 and 26) and 3 times (Chapters 4, 8 and 19) in its sequel, Equality.

The concept of paying merchants using a card was invented in 1950 by Ralph Schneider and Frank X. McNamara in order to consolidate multiple cards. The Diners Club, which was created partially through a merger with Dine and Sign, produced the first "general purpose" charge card, which is similar but required the entire bill to be paid with each statement; it was followed shortly thereafter by American Express and Carte Blanche. Western Union had begun issuing charge cards to its frequent customers in 1914.

Bank of America created the BankAmericard in 1958, a product which eventually evolved into the Visa system ("Chargex" also became Visa). MasterCard came to being in 1966 when a group of credit-issuing banks established MasterCharge. The fractured nature of the US banking system meant that credit cards became an effective way for those who were travelling around the country to, in effect, move their credit to places where they could not directly use their banking facilities. In 1966 Barclaycard in the UK launched the first credit card outside of the US.

There are now countless variations on the basic concept of revolving credit for individuals (as issued by banks and honored by a network of financial institutions), including organization-branded credit cards, corporate-user credit cards, store cards and so on.

In contrast, although having reached very high adoption levels in the US, Canada and the UK, it is important to note that many cultures were much more cash-oriented in the latter half of the twentieth century (Germany, France, Switzerland, among many others). In these places, the take-up of credit cards was initially much slower. It took until the 1990s to reach anything like the percentage market-penetration levels achieved in the US, Canada or UK. In many countries acceptance still remains poor as the use of a credit card system depends on the banking system being perceived as reliable.

In contrast, because of the legislative framework surrounding banking system overdrafts, some countries, France in particular, were much faster to develop and adopt chip-based credit cards which are now seen as major anti-fraud credit devices.

The design of the Credit Card itself has become a major selling point in recent years. The value of the card to the Issuer being related to the Customer’s usage of the card. This has led to the rise of Co-Brand and Affinity cards - where the card design is related to the Affinity (a University, for example) leading to higher card usage. In most cases a percentage of the value of the card is returned to the Affinity group.

Controversy

As mentioned, the merchant pays a negotiated fee — typically 1-3% for larger merchants and 3-6% for smaller merchants — to process credit payments. Merchants who accept credit card payments typically sign a "merchant agreement," promising that they won’t offer different prices for card and non-card transactions. In some countries the fee may be significantly more. If customers were responsible for this fee, it would often discourage credit card usage. Some critics have observed that this results in what is effectively a hidden tax on all transactions conducted by merchants who accept credit cards since they must build the cost of transaction fees into their overall business expense. The end result is that other customers are essentially subsidizing credit card holder purchases. The cost of the convenience enjoyed by card holders and the profits taken from transaction fees by the card industry (which has come to rely increasingly on this revenue stream over the years) is partially offloaded onto the backs of the cash customer. Critics go on to say that further compounding the issue is the fact that the customers most likely to pay in cash are the least able to afford the additional expense (card holders are more likely to be affluent, non-card holders less so).

A counterargument is that there are also costs to the merchant in other forms of payment. For cash payments these include frequent trips to the bank or use of an armored delivery service, theft, and employee error, such that cash is actually not cheaper for the merchant than credit cards. Some businesses may offer a discount for cash-paying customers.

Some companies offer incentives or bonus coupons for using cash, such as Canadian Tire Money. Australia is currently acting to reduce this by allowing merchants to apply surcharges for credit card users. In the United Kingdom, merchants won the right through The Credit Cards (Price Discrimination) Order 1990 to charge customers different prices according to the payment method, but few merchants do so (the most notable exceptions being budget airlines and travel agents). The United Kingdom is the world’s most credit-card-intensive country, with 67 million credit cards for a population of 59 million people.^[3]

There also exists an economic argument that credit card use increases the "velocity" of money in an economy. The result, according to the quantity theory of money, is an effective increase in the money supply, as more money is flowing through the economy at a given time. Although there is many a sad story of credit card abuse, the trend is increasing use, with some predicting a cashless society in the not so distant future.

There is some controversy about credit card usage in recent years. Credit card debt has soared, particularly among young people. Since the late 1990s, lawmakers, consumer advocacy groups, college officials and other higher education affiliates have become increasingly concerned about the rising use of credit cards among college students. The major credit card companies have been accused of targeting a younger audience, in particular college students, many of whom are already in debt with college tuition fees and college loans and who typically are less experienced at managing their own finances. A recent study by United College Marketing Services has shown that student credit lines have increased to over $6,000. Credit card usage has tripled since 2001 amongst teenagers as well. Since eighteen year-olds in many countries and most U.S. states are eligible for a card without parental consent or employment, the likelihood of increased balances, unwise use of credit and damaged credit scores increases.

A 2006 documentary film titled Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders deals with this subject in detail [1].

According to Larry Chiang of United College Marketing Services, an example of a credit card class action was where issuers were "rolling back" posting times to extract more late fees. The due dates were "rolled back" from 1pm to 10am because mail was delivered in the afternoon so due dates were actually rolled back to charge more late fees. The following banks are listed (with the amounts penalized) in this one particular class action.

• Providian: US$405 million
• Bank One: US$40 million
• Chase: US$22.2 million
• Citibank: US$15.5 million

Another controversial area is the universal default feature of many North American credit card contracts. When a cardholder is late paying a particular credit card issuer, that card’s interest rate can be raised, often considerably. Given this circumstance with one credit card, universal default allows other card issuers to raise the cardholder’s interest rates on other accounts, even if those other accounts are not in default.

In the United States, some have called for Congress to enact additional regulations on the industry; to expand the disclosure box clearly disclosing rate hikes, use plain language, incorporate balance payoff disclosures, and also to outlaw universal default. Opponents - usually of a conservative or libertarian orientation - of such regulation argue that customers must become more proactive and self-responsible in evaluating and neogotiating terms with credit offerers. The nation’s influential top three bank card issuers, who are among the top fifty corporate contributors to political compaigns, successfully opposed it.

Minimum payments

In the UK, there has recently been increasing concern about the minimum payments required on outstanding credit card balances. Until the mid-1990s the required minimum monthly payment was generally 5% of the outstanding balance, but competition in the last 15 years to attract customers has led to this figure being eroded on the premise that the minimum monthly payment to service a debt will be lower. Typically, credit card companies now only require a monthly minimum payment of between 2% and 3% of the outstanding balance, or a fixed cash fee, whichever is the greater. For example, on a debt of £1,000, the card holder can expect to pay back only £20 - £30 per month.

Unfortunately, some people are not aware of how long it can take to repay a debt when only paying the minimum each month. An example of this: by paying 2.5% of the debt each month, while accruing interest at 14% (in line with modern credit card interest rates), it can take over 14 years to pay back an original debt of £1,000.

It has recently been suggested that credit card companies include a warning on their statements discouraging customers from paying only the minimum, however few companies have so far acted upon this. Companies which do include a warning tend not to inform customers how long full repayment will take, i.e. they discourage users from making just minimum payments but do not explain why. Less financially savvy customers may ignore these empty warnings as a result.

Starting in 2006, most US credit card companies regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency have been required to increase customers’ minimum payments to cover at least the interest and late fees from the prior statement plus 1% of the outstanding balance. The reason is to avoid a negative amortization situation which may result when the previous 3% minimum was enforced.

Trailing interest

Trailing interest, sometimes called final or residual interest, is a method of calculation whereby interest is charged right up until the day of a full payment. Cardholders of banks that use this method receive a bill with the balance owing and interest accrued and pay it off in full. On the next statement they are billed a "final" amount of interest even if no purchases or cash advances have been debited since. The reason for this is that interest continues to accrue from the time of the close of the previous statement until the day the payment for that statement is actually received.

In comparison to the normal method of interest calculation, this method is judged by many to be a hidden and thus unfair cost. Uninformed cardholders often inquire as to what amount they need to pay by their due date in order to have paid off their credit card in full and to stop interest from accumulating. They then proceed to pay off this amount under the belief that they are finished paying interest charges, only to find trailing interest on their next statement which was posted to their account on the day of the statement billing (so even if they check their balance a day before that next billing date, it would still show a zero balance).

Credit card numbering

Main article: Credit card number

The numbers found on credit cards have a certain amount of internal structure, and share a common numbering scheme.

The card number’s prefix, called the Bank Identification Number, is the sequence of digits at the beginning of the number that determine the bank to which a credit card number belongs. This is the first six digits for Mastercard and Visa cards. The next nine digits are the individual account number, and the final digit is a validity check code.

In addition to the main credit card number, credit cards also carry issue and expiration dates (given to the nearest month), as well as extra codes such as issue numbers and security codes. Not all credit cards have the same sets of extra codes nor do they use the same number of digits.

Credit cards in ATMs

Many credit cards can also be used in an ATM to withdraw money against the credit limit extended to the card but many card issuers charge interest on cash advances before they do so on purchases. The interest on cash advances is commonly charged from the date the withdrawal is made, rather than the monthly billing date. Many card issuers levy a commission for cash withdrawals, even if the ATM belongs to the same bank as the card issuer. Merchants do not offer cashback on credit card transactions because they would pay a percentage commission of the additional cash amount to their bank or merchant services provider, thereby making it uneconomical.

Many credit card companies will also, when applying payments to a card, do so at the end of a billing cycle, and apply those payments to everything before cash advances. For this reason, many consumers have large cash balances, which have no grace period and incur interest at a rate that is (usually) higher than the purchase rate, and will carry those balance for years, even if they pay off their statement balance each month.

Credit card networks

• American Express
• Bankcard
• China UnionPay
• Diners Club
• Discover
• JCB
• MasterCard
• VISA

Credit cards as funding for entrepreneurs

Credit cards are a creative, yet often risky way for entrepreneurs to acquire capital for their start ups when more conventional financing is unavailable. It is rumoured that Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s start up of Google was financed by credit cards to buy the necessary computers and office equipment.^{[citation needed]} Similarly, filmmaker Robert Townsend financed part of Hollywood Shuffle using credit cards.^[4] Director Kevin Smith funded Clerks. in part by maxing out several credit cards. Richard Hatch also financed his production of Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming partly through his credit cards.

Collectable credit cards

A growing field of numismatics (study of money), or more specifically Exonumia (study of money-like objects), credit card collectors seek to collect various embodiments of credit from the now familiar plastic cards to older paper merchant cards, and even metal tokens that were accepted as merchant credit cards. Early credit cards were made of celluloid, then metal and fiber, then paper and are now mostly plastic.

Charga-Plate

The Charga-Plate is an early predecessor to the credit card. They were issued by large-scale merchants, much like department store credit cards of today.

Source : Wikipedia

Une carte de paiement est un type de moyen de paiement sous forme de carte plastique, équipée d’une bande magnétique et/ou puce électronique (voir carte à puce), qui permet :

• le paiement d’achats et prestations de services, auprès de fournisseurs possédant un « terminal de paiement » (remplaçant l’ancien « fer à repasser ») pouvant lire la carte et connecté ou non à sa banque ou dans un appareil de distribution automatique ;
• les retraits d’espèces aux distributeurs de billets ;
• le télépaiement internet, etc.

Elle est acceptée sur quasiment toute la planète si elle est de type « internationale ».

Un exemple est la « CB - Carte bancaire » selon l’appellation déposée pour celles relevant du réseau interbancaire français (couramment appelée « Carte bleue », alors qu’il ne s’agit que d’une marque particulière),

Différents types de carte

carte de débit

Elle accepte différentes options au choix du porteur :

• débit immédiat : imputation sur le compte bancaire par la banque du porteur au jour le jour ;
• débit différé : le compte du porteur est débité périodiquement à date fixe, voire mobile : dernier jour ouvert du mois
• paiement ou retrait simple en distributeur automatique de billet (DAB)
• à autorisation systématique ou non,
• à utilisation internationale ou nationale, etc.

carte de crédit

fonctionnant selon le principe du crédit révolving, avec le remboursement des dépenses à la banque étalée par mensualités pour l’utilisateur.

porte-monnaie électronique

Les PME sont semblables à une carte téléphonique et réservés aux petites dépenses :

• Moneo en France ;
• Proton en Belgique ;
• carte Octopus à Hong-Kong.

Elle peut éventuellement se réduire à une simple puce électronique intégrée (au Japon) au téléphone portable.

autres cartes

• La carte affaires: pour la gestion des frais des collaborateurs d’une entreprise
• La carte achat : pour les achats de fourniture de l’entreprise
• La carte de fidélité (Loyalty)
• La carte associative (Affinity)
• La carte ville
• La carte virtuelle (e-carte bleue, voir aussi e-commerce)

Identification

La carte bancaire se caractérise par un BIN (Bank Identification Number) qui permet d’identifier l’établissement émetteur de la carte.

L’ISO 7810 est le standard international qui définit les trois formats pour les cartes : ID-1, ID-2, et ID-3.

La gestion du support

Les cartes sont fabriquées par des encarteurs (comme par exemple Oberthur, Sagem, Gemplus, Axalto (ex Schlumberger), Gemalto).
En règle générale, l’encarteur fabrique la carte pour l’émetteur qui la remettra à son client. Lorsque la carte est associée à un code secret, ce dernier est communiqué directement par le façonnier au porteur par un mailer (sans passer par la banque émettrice) ce qui garantit une meilleure sécurité.

Historique

La génèse de la carte

1914 – Western Union – carte en métal

1950 – Diners’ Club : carte de paiement sous forme de petit carnet

1951 – premières cartes bancaires de paiement – en carton

1957 – American Express et la première carte plastique

1960 – embossage des cartes

1971 – les pistes magnétiques

1974 – la carte à mémoire

L’ère de la puce

1979 – les premiers publiphones en France

1982 – la carte téléphonique à puce

1989 – la carte à crypto processeur

1992 – la carte téléphonique à gratter

1994 – le porte-monnaie électronique

1997 – la carte sans contact

2001 – la carte téléphonique virtuelle

2002 – la e-carte bleue

2004 – premières cartes bancaires sans contact

Naissance de la carte de paiement

1914 – Western Union – support d’identification

1914 – 1950 : identification associée à un crédit

1950 – Diners’ Club : carte de paiement

1951 – Franklin National Bank : carte bancaire de crédit

1953 – cartes bancaires de débit

1957 – naissance de BankAmericard (future Visa)

1958 – naissance de la carte American Express

Années 1960 – naissance des cartes de crédit privatives Cetelem, Sofinco, Cofinoga

Années 1960 – naissance en Suède de l’Eurocard

Naissance des grands réseaux

1967 – naissance de Interbank (futur MasterCard)

1967 – naissance de Charge Master

1967 – naissance des cartes de banque (garantie de chèques)

1967 – naissance de la Carte Bleue

1968 – naissance d’Eurocheque

1968 – accords Interbank et Charge Master qui deviendront MasterCard

1977 – naissance de Visa

1978 – naissance des cartes cobrandées

1978 – naissance de Visa europe à Londres

1979 – naissance de MasterCard

1980 – la piste magnétique se généralise

L’internationalisation

1974 – accords Carte Bleue Americard : la Carte Bleue internationale

1977 – le Crédit Agricole distribue Eurocard

1978 – le Crédit Agricole rachète Eurocard

1979 – les premiers terminaux de paiement électronique en France

1983 – naissance de l’AFB

1984 – naissance du GIE Cartes Bancaires

1985 – les cartes de prestige Amex Gold, Visa Premier, MasterCard Gold

L’interbancarité

1985 – l’interbancarité

1985 – Cartes Bancaires choisit la puce

1986 – les cartes de prestige en France

1986 – Cetelem émet des Cartes Bancaires

1986 – les cartes de crédit Carte Bleue

1988 – le crédit revolving dans les banques (pluriel, crédilion, …)

1989 – Cofinoga crée la Banque Sigma

1989 – l’UAP lance sa carte de Crédit

1990 – premier retrait dans le réseau Cartes Bancaires

1992 – mise en place des Cartes Bancaires à puce

1994 – fidélité et carte de paiement : Point Ciel de Cofinoga

L’ère des changements

1994 – naissance de la CRI pour les transferts de gros montant entre banques

1995 – lecteurs de puces dans les DAB

1996 – Europay, MasterCard et Visa lancent EMV

1998 – les expérimentations billetiques en France

1998 – les expérimentations du porte-monnaie électronique en France

2000 – paiement sur Internet : les débuts

1998 – évolution des TPE pour le passage à CB 5.1

1999 – évolution des TPE pour le passage à l’an 2000

1999 – création de la Banque Centrale Européenne

2000 – paiement sur Internet : le cryptage

2001 – évolution des TPE pour le passage à l’euro

2002 – paiement sur Internet : l’authentification

2003 – mise en place d’EMV en Europe

2004 – déploiement d’EMV en France

La dématérialisation

• la e-carte bleue
• les cartes téléphoniques virtuelles : e-voucher et e-topup
• L’e-gift solution pour les cartes cadeau
• L’e-DAC solution pour le carburant

Poids Economique

En 2005, il était estimé que les commerçants de l’Union européenne ont payé plus de 25 milliards d’euros en commissions pour l’utilisation des cartes de paiement sur un chiffre d’affaire total sur les points de vente de 1350 milliards d’euros^[1]. Les cartes de paiement contribueraient à hauteur de 25 % des profits du secteur de la banque de détail.

Enjeux concurrentiels

Le secteur économique des cartes de paiement est au centre de la curiosité de plusieurs autorités de concurrence ou de régulation dans divers pays; ce n’est pas par hasard. C’est une industrie de réseau fondée sur des marchés double-face; deux de ses protagonistes – Visa et MasterCard – sont des associations de banques, elles-mêmes le résultat de joint-ventures, qui distribuent les cartes aux porteurs et proposent des services aux commerçants qui acceptent ces cartes. Ces particularités laissent entendre que le secteur pourrait ne pas être suffisamment concurrentiel et appeler l’intervention des autorités de concurrence ou de régulation. Cependant, ces mêmes particularités rendent difficiles la détermination du bilan concurrentiel par référence aux standards habituels du droit de la concurrence. L’analyse économique nécessaire aux décisions de droit de la concurrence ou aux politiques de régulation buttent sur ces de modèles économiques qui sont présentés comme novateurs.

Source : Wikipedia

Un article de Wikipédia, l’encyclopédie libre.

Le crédit permanent ou crédit revolving est une forme de crédit consistant à mettre à disposition d’un emprunteur une somme d’argent sur un compte particulier ouvert auprès de l’établissement dispensateur de ce crédit, de façon permanente et avec laquelle il peut financer les achats de son choix. Il constitue une formule particulière de crédit à la consommation et relève par conséquent de la réglementation y afférant.

Le renouvellement du crédit permanent s’opère au fur et à mesure des remboursements de l’emprunteur dans la limite du montant autorisé par l’organisme et à concurrence de la partie remboursée. Cette formule de crédit est généralement assortie d’une carte de crédit utilisable dans le réseau des commerces affiliés qui acceptent cette carte. Si cette formule présente l’avantage de la souplesse, elle est généralement coûteuse, peut constituer une incitation dangereuse à la surconsommation - voire au surendettement - et nécessite donc une parfaite gestion de son compte.

Le succès du crédit renouvelable repose sur une demande importante et durable de crédits de petits montants, émanant d’une clientèle nombreuse et solvable dans la majorité des cas.

Cette forme de crédit à la consommation a suscité diverses critiques de la part, notamment, d’associations de consommateurs qui ont mis en cause son rôle dans le surendettement des ménages. Le glissement que l’on observe des crédits affectés vers les crédits non affectés prive, en effet, les emprunteurs des protections attachées à l’affectation contractuelle.

Principe

Crédit « reconstituable », il permet à l’emprunteur de disposer, librement et en permanence, d’une certaine somme d’argent.

Le montant ainsi disponible - parfois appelé « réserve » - se reconstitue chaque mois au fur et à mesure des remboursements effectués, dans la limite autorisée.

Types

Ce crédit peut se pratiquer sous l’une et/ou les deux formes suivantes :

• la « ligne de crédit » : le crédit s’apparente alors à une autorisation de découvert renouvelable, liée au compte bancaire de l’emprunteur et celui-ci puise alors dans la réserve de trésorerie qui lui est consentie, soit par chèque, soit par virement ;

• la carte de crédit : le revolving peut en effet être couplé avec une carte bancaire, une carte d’achat privative émise par certains grands magasins, ou encore une carte de crédit spécifique émise par certains organismes financiers.

Montant

Le montant du crédit est fonction des revenus, des autres crédits éventuellement contractés et de la relation du client avec son banquier. Il est généralement compris entre 2 et 3 fois le revenu net mensuel.

Durée

La durée du contrat est limitée à 1 an (renouvellement par tacite reconduction). Trois mois avant la date « anniversaire » de l’ouverture du compte, l’établissement de crédit doit obligatoirement remettre à l’emprunteur une offre de renouvellement (arrêt de la première chambre civile de la Cour de cassation du 18 septembre 1998) ; de plus, l’augmentation du plafond prêté doit faire l’objet d’une nouvelle offre de crédit (arrêt de la première chambre civile de la Cour de cassation du 17 mars 1998, Mlle S. c/ Finaref).

Intérêts

Les intérêts sont décomptés sur les sommes restant dues à la fin de chaque mois. Le TEG - autrement dit, le taux effectif global - varie entre 10 et 18,08 %.

Garanties

La souscription d’une assurance décès et invalidité est généralement requise.

Remboursement

Le rythme des remboursements est laissé au choix du bénéficiaire dans la limite du respect d’un minimum mensuel.

Comme pour tout crédit amortissable, chaque mensualité se décompose de deux parties :

la première a pour objet le paiement des intérêts sur le capital effectivement emprunté, la seconde a pour objet le remboursement d’une partie du capital emprunté. Remboursement anticipé, partiel ou total, possible à tout moment, sans pénalités.

Protection de l’emprunteur

S’agissant d’un crédit à la consommation, des règles particulières, visant à informer et à protéger le consommateur, s’appliquent au contrat initial:

offre préalable de prêt, précisant notamment le montant maximal du crédit, son coût total, les conditions et le coût de l’assurance éventuelle, délai de réflexion de 15 jours au minimum, pour permettre à l’emprunteur d’étudier les termes du contrat, et délai de rétractation de 7 jours une fois l’offre préalable de prêt signée, durant lequel l’emprunteur peut encore se rétracter.

Source : Wikipedia

MONDIAL ASSISTANCE GROUP et ses filiales françaises (Elvia, France Secours, Mondial Assistance France) sont détenus par Allianz, premier assureur européen.

MONDIAL ASSISTANCE GROUP

Leader international de l’Assistance, de l’Assurance voyage et des services aux personnes, le groupe Mondial Assistance compte aujourd’hui plus de 8100 salariés et intervient dans le monde entier via un réseau de 400.000 prestataires et 240 correspondants. 250 millions de personnes sont bénéficiaires de ses services, soit 4% de la population mondiale. Présent dans 26 pays, sur les cinq continents, le groupe Mondial Assistance développe des solutions innovantes et les commercialise en Business to Business auprès de ses clients issus des secteurs du voyage, de l’assurance, de l’automobile et de la banque. Avec près de 40 marques automobiles clientes et 3,6 millions d’interventions automobiles en 2005, Mondial Assistance occupe une position du premier rang sur ce marché. Le développement du groupe repose sur la création de nouveaux services répondant à des besoins de plus en plus évolués (télématique et géo localisation en automobile, prévention et accompagnement de patients en matière de santé,…) et sur de nouveaux canaux de distribution (e-commerce, …).

MONDIAL ASSISTANCE FRANCE
Filiale du Groupe Mondial Assistance, n°1 de l’assistance et de l’assurance voyage dans le monde, Mondial Assistance France compte plus de 800 collaborateurs et sert chaque année près de 700 000 bénéficiaires. Mondial Assistance France apporte son expertise dans cinq domaines : l’automobile, la santé, l’habitation, la scolarité/l’emploi/la retraite et le voyage. En France, 8 millions d’automobilistes, 6,5 millions d’assurés santé et 5 millions d’assurés habitation ont accès aux services de Mondial Assistance France via leur compagnie d’assurance ou leur banque.

Source : Wikipedia

Credit history or credit report is, in many countries, a record of an individual’s or company’s past borrowing and repaying, including information about late payments and bankruptcy. The term "credit reputation" can either be used synonymous to credit history or to credit score.

When a customer fills out an application for credit from a bank, store or credit card company, his or her information is forwarded to a credit bureau, along with constant updates on the status of his or her credit accounts, address or any other changes you may have made since the last time he or she applied for any credit.

This information is used by lenders such as credit card companies to determine an individual’s or entity’s credit worthiness; that is, determining an individual’s or entity’s means and willingness to repay an indebtedness. This helps determine whether to extend credit, and on what terms. With the adoption of risk-based pricing on almost all lending in the financial services industry, this report has become even more important since it is usually the sole element used to choose the annual percentage rate (APR).

How credit rating is determined

Credit ratings are determined differently in each country, but the factors are similar, and may include:

• Payment record: A record of bills being overdue will lower the credit rating.
• Control of debt: Lenders want to see that borrowers are not living beyond their means. Experts estimate that non-mortgage credit payments each month should not exceed more than 15 percent of the borrower’s after tax income.
• Signs of responsibility and stability - Lenders perceive things such as longevity in the borrower’s home and job (at least two years) as signs of stability. Having a respected profession can improve a credit rating.
• Re-Aging - Through re-aging, a credit history is re-written and you are given a fresh start on that particular account. This can dramatically improve the credit score. In 2000 the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFEIC) clarified guidelines on re-aging accounts for delinquent borrowers. [1] (PDF)
• Credit cards that are not used - Although it is believed that having too many credit cards can have an adverse effect on a credit score, closing these lines of credit will not improve your score. The credit rating formula looks at the difference between the amount of credit a person has and the amount being used, so closing one or more accounts will reduce your total available credit. This in turn lowers the percentage of available credit, and the credit score will drop. The credit formula also factors in the length of time credit accounts have been open, so closing an account with several years of history is another avoidable credit mistake.
• Credit inquiries � An inquiry is a notation on a credit history file. There are two kinds of notations:

"Soft" Credit Pulls:

1. A credit bureau may sell a person’s contact information to an advertiser purchasing a list of people with similar characteristics, like homeowners with excellent credit.
2. A creditor can check a person’s credit periodically.
3. A credit counseling agency, with the client’s permission, can obtain a client’s credit report with no adverse action.

"Hard" Credit Pulls: Hard credit inquiries are made by lenders. Lenders, when granted a permissible purpose by a borrower for the purposes of extending his credit, can check his credit history. Hard inquiries from lenders directly affect the borrower’s credit score. Keeping credit inquiries to a minimum can help a person’s credit rating. A lender may perceive many inquiries on a person’s report as a signal that the person is looking for loans and will possibly consider that person a poor credit risk.

Understanding credit reports and scores

In the United States, once every 12 months, each person is entitled to one free credit report from each of the three nationwide consumer credit reporting companies: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.

The Government of Canada offers a free publication called Understanding Your Credit Report and Credit Score. This publication provides sample credit report and credit score documents with explanations of the notations and codes that are used. It also contains general information on how to build or improve credit history, and how to check for signs that identity theft has occurred. The publication is available online at http://www.fcac.gc.ca, the site of the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada. Paper copies can also be ordered at no charge for residents of Canada.

International issues

Credit history is typically local to one country. Even within the same credit card network information is not shared for different countries. For example, a person who has been using Visa credit cards issued by banks in China or Canada for many years who moves to the United States and immediately applies for a Visa will not be approved because of lack of credit history.

An immigrant must establish a credit history from scratch in the new country, which can take years. New immigrants are forced to seek loans from irregular channels, which can create social problems.

Source : Wikipedia