www.MyVoucherCodes.co.uk polled a sample of 2,136 UK adults in a bid to discover more about their spending habits. The survey formed part of ongoing research into the financial situations of Britons and respondents of this poll were required to answer specific questions about card payments. All respondents tended to pay for items on card when in-store, rather than using cash.

When asked ‘How many times in the last week have you had to enter the PIN for your main credit or debit card for in-store purchases?’ the average answer stated by respondents was ‘22’. Taking this answer into account, that would mean that the average Briton enters their PIN, on average, 1,144 times per year.

However, when the respondents were asked if they carried a copy of their PIN on them, in case they forgot it, 34% admitted that they did. These people were then asked where it was that they kept their PIN reminder and the most popular answers were as follows:

• Purse/wallet – 36%
• On mobile phone – 22%
• In pocket – 19%
• In bag – 17%
• Other – 6%

When asked if they had considered that carrying their PIN on them might be risky, 77% said ‘no’. All respondents were asked if they’d ever been a victim of card fraud, to which a fifth, 21%, said ‘yes’. Half of these people, 48%, were respondents that said they carried their PIN reminder on them.

Mark Pearson, chairman of MyVoucherCodes.co.uk, commented:

“You’d think that entering your PIN more than 1,000 a year would be enough to start remembering what it was. To see that a third keep a reminder of their PIN on them was alarming, particularly because most of these people keep it nestled in their purse or wallet and probably right next to their card. If a thief got their hands on the purse or wallet in question, they’d have an easy – not to mention free – spending spree!

“Consumers should do all they can to protect themselves from credit and debit card fraud and keeping a PIN reminder on them isn’t the way. When you get a new PIN, think of creative ways to remember it, or change it to a number that you will remember.”

Third Of Britons Carry PIN Reminder was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

As you can see from the graph below, card fraud increased massively between 2005/06 to 2009/10, but since then has begun to drop back down:

The CSEW data suggests that those most likely to be targeted by card fraud are males aged 45-54, with an annual household income of £50,000 or more.

The chart below shows the percentage of card holders affected by fraud within each household income group.

Via The Guardian.

Card Fraud Down For Second Year In A Row was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

Well, now the same team behind that study has published further research that suggests the number of views on a company’s Wikipedia page could also predict stock market changes.

We present evidence in line with the intriguing suggestion that data on changes in how often financially related Wikipedia pages were viewed may have contained early signs of stock market moves. Our results suggest that online data may allow us to gain new insight into early information gathering stages of decision making.

The researchers from the UK and US looked at how often pages describing 30 companies listed in the Dow Jones Industrial Average were viewed between 2007 and  2012 and  found that an increase in the number of page views for a firm’s Wikipedia pages was followed by a decline in its share price. A simple trading strategy tested, based on changes in the frequency of views, would have led to significant profits of up to 141%, claims the paper.

Another interesting finding of the study was that the number of Wikipedia edits had no correlation to the share price movements.

Wikipedia Hits “Can Predict Stock Market Movements” was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

In a blog post on their website, CEO Guy Goldstein explained the rational behind the change:

When we launched in 2008, Pageonce made sense because our focus was to give people a way to access all their online accounts (email, rewards, travel, etc.) from “one page.” Since then, we’ve evolved into a mobile app that focuses on personal finance – offering a unique way to stay on top of your bills & money while on-the-go. Given the evolution of our product, a new name was necessary.

Despite the name change, the app will remain the same. It’s been a couple of years since we reviewed Pageonce Check, so it would probably be a good time to take another look.

Here’s a promo video explaining more about Check:

Pageonce Renamed “Check” was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

In a lot of cases, losing access to your online banking accounts can be an annoyance more than anything, but there’s also a chance downtime at your bank could mean extra cost and inconvenience for you.

lovemoney.com has posted a useful article on your rights when online and mobile banking goes wrong, including how to claim compensation and how to complain.

They also have tips on switching your accounts to another bank, although with the nature of IT issues, no bank can guarantee they’ll be available 100% of the time, but some may be better at communicating to clients when there are problems, whilst others may offer better guarantees and compensation arrangements.

Online Banking: What To Do If It Goes Wrong was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

The study by academics from London, Warwick and Boston (which you can read in full here, should you wish to go into far more detail than we can cover here), used the data available from Google Trends, which shows the volume of searches made for keywords over time.

They analysed the volumes of 98 different search terms relating to the stock market, and looked at how the Dow Jones index fared as the volumes of these searches changed. In the case of one term, “debt”, they suggest that a trading strategy based on this keyword could have yielded a return of 326%.

Via Finextra

Google Search Volumes “Can Predict Stock Market Movements” was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

There are thoughts that Apple is set to include fingerprint technology in future generations of the iPhone, possibly for authentication, and then maybe for providing security for its own mobile payment system.

But there’s another use of fingerprints currently being trialled by a Spanish company called Paytouch, which lets account holders link their fingerprints to a credit card, and then pay for items using a scan of two fingers.

Here’s Paytouch in action:

The system is currently only in use in a single hotel in Ibiza, but is looking to expand through Spain and further afield in the coming months.

Fingerprint readers aren’t particularly new, indeed, payment by fingerprint has been done before, but failed to take off, so it will be good to see what Paytouch does differently.

Personally, I’m not sure it brings much more convenience or indeed security than card or mobile phone payment systems, so I doubt it will take off.

Pay With Your Fingerprint was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

The next trick will be to get the wallet to text your phone when it’s empty, or to get it to record when you take notes so you can track what you’re spending more easily… or maybe not.

Via Lifehacker

Hack Your Wallet To Remind You When It’s Empty was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

M&S appears to be partnering with mobile payments app Paddle (shown above) in order to enable this new functionality:

Paddle is the quickest way to securely pay online and on the mobile web. Your card details are encrypted and stored in the cloud along with your delivery addresses so you’ll never have to type them in again.

Here’s Paddle in action, showing an impressively quick online payment (apparently, it’s not a shortened sequence in the video, either):

Via the Independent.

M&S To Trial Mobile Payment App was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

RatedPeople.com, which has 30,000 registered tradesmen on its books, including plumbers, electricians, bricklayers and carpenters, is rolling out a trial with iZettle, to enable users to securely accept card payments on the go via their smartphone or tablet device.

Chief Marketing Officer of RatedPeople.com, Tariq Dag Khan said: “Finding alternative mobile payment options for our tradesmen is a high priority for us as we know that there is a stigma attached to cash in hand payments, an issue that is unfairly tarnishing the industry.

“As cheques are gradually being phased out too, we are looking for innovating payment solutions that will help build up the trust between tradesmen and their customers. iZettle has a reputation for being a trusted, easy to use service that allows tradesmen to get up and running within minutes – this made them an obvious starting point for us.”

iZettle is handy for tradesmen as it helps them to manage their cash flow and effectively record point of sale transactions for both cash and card payments. Users have said this free service has transformed their accounting and business processes and allows them to spend more time on growing the business and less time on admin.

Stewart Roberts, Managing Director at iZettle, UK, comments: “Working with a premium service like RatedPeople.com makes perfect sense for us. We are signing up 3,000 users a day to iZettle, a large proportion of which are tradesmen. This indicates just how large the demand is for this kind of solution and iZettle is looking forward to working with the RatedPeople.com community.”

iZettle Teams Up with RatedPeople.com was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.