January 27th, 2012 | Banking |
Barclays telephone banking-is it a good system or not? Let’s look at the 2 most important variables:
#1) Customer service
This is obviously VERY important in telephone banking. How is the service?
Like practically all other banks today, Barclays outsources their call centers. Translated: you’d better cross your fingers and hope you get somebody who speaks good English.
However, their employees generally tend to be well screened… and for the most part tend are knowledgeable and speak English well. More often than not you will have a good experience-at least when speaking with someone.
The problem is getting to speak to somebody. It’s not uncommon to experience extraordinarily long wait times when calling during busy hours.
#2) Ease of use
Barclays telephone banking is relatively easy to understand, which is good because it means you should rarely have to speak to someone in the first place. You can perform almost any function over the phone that you could at a physical branch.
Be aware…
One complaint some have had is that occasionally scam artists will call you posing to be from the company… but they are really just after your bank account info. Generally speaking, if someone calls you asking for your info–even if they claim to be from Barclays–don’t give it to them.
Obviously this isn’t a slight against the company-it has nothing to do with them. It’s just something to be careful of.
So is it recommended?
Overall I would say yes. Assuming you don’t have to speak to a live person-and usually you won’t-Barclays telephone banking is a good system to use.
November 22nd, 2011 | Investing |
An investment calculator can be a wonderful tool if you are contemplating investing but are not sure which scheme will give you the best financial rewards. With so many companies now advertising on the internet, it is easy to gain access to a great many investment opportunities.
Many companies who are available to handle your investments will feature an investment calculator on their website. These are usually easy to use and will give you an idea of what return you can expect if you put your money with them. The calculator is there to help you get a clear picture of what you can expect back after a certain length of time. There are many variables which you can enter into the equation and all of these can be taken into account when calculating the results.
There are two basic types of investment available. You could invest a lump sum or you could invest in a regular contribution plan. Alternatively you could use a combination of both of these schemes. To use an investment calculator efficiently, you will need to enter some details regarding your chosen method of investment and the sums involved. You will be asked to enter a timescale. Would you like to invest over a long period of time, perhaps for your retirement, or is it going to be a shorter timescale? You will also need to know how much you are willing to save and whether this is going to be a lump sum or regular contributions.
Once you have entered the necessary information the investment calculator will be able to let you know what your investment will be worth after a stipulated length of time. You can then change details to give a comparison. For example you may get a higher return if you leave your money in the plan for an extra five years or so. Alternatively, by adding just a few more dollars to your monthly contributions, you may find that you get a disproportionately higher return at the end of the term. A good investment calculator will be able to plot graphs and charts for you so that you can easily see what happens if you change some of the variables.
An investment calculator is only recommended as a guide for investment planning. It will not give you a definitive answer. Some investments plans have potential for high returns as they are based on fluctuating interest rates and some of these are potentially risky. A calculator that is published by a company that offers you a plan is by no means a guarantee of the returns that you will receive and you must consider that the value of investments may go down as well as up.
September 8th, 2009 | Loans |
In a previous article we presented a simple formula to calculate the amount of a monthly home mortgage loan payment. The formula applies to any compound interest loan. The only special equipment you need is a calculator with a power function key. That’s the key with the y superscript x (y ^ x). If you have kids in school you probably already have one.
Here is a review of monthly payment formula.
The variables are:
N = loan period in months. i.e. 20 years = 240 months.
R = interest rate in whole numbers. i.e. 8% written as 8.
P = principal amount of the loan. The amount borrowed.
Q = the Q factor. An intermediate calculation.
M = monthly payment amount
Here’s the entire formula for the monthly payment amount of a compound interest loan:
M = (P * R * Q) / (1200 * (Q -1))
Easy enough, but first you have to calculate the value of Q. Here is the formula:
Q = (1 + R/1200) ^N. Pretty simple, but you do need the power function key. N can get large.
In our earlier example we calculated a monthly payment of $418.22 on a $50,000 second mortgage at 8% for 20 years. You have paid the 2nd mortgage loan for 5 years (60 months). The pay off amount is $43,763 (rounded). This is how to calculate the pay off amount on any compound interest loan after N number of payments.
This is an easy three step process with a subtraction at the end. First calculate the growth value of the loan amount (P). P increases by a factor of (1 + R/1200) per month, so after N months the value of the principal amount of the loan would have inflated to P * (1 + R/1200) ^ N. For the current $50,000 second mortgage the calculation looks like this:
50000 * (1 +8/1200) ^60 = 74492.28 (step one)
The monthly payments have also inflated by a factor of (1 + R/1200) per month so in math talk we have a geometric series with n terms. The monthly payment part is a little more complicated and the formula looks like this:
1200 * M * ((1 + R/1200) ^N -1) / R
Plug in the actual values and it looks like this:
1200 * 418.22 * (1 + 8/1200) ^60 / 8 = 30729.49 (step two)
Now finish up by subtracting the inflated repayment value from the inflated loan amount value to get the pay off amount:
74492.28 – 30729.49 = 43762.79 (pay-off)
Once you know how to calculate the monthly payment and pay-off amount for any compound interest loan on the back of an envelope, you can noodle mortgage and car loan what-ifs from anywhere.