After being on the block for about two years, HSBC Bank Canada announced Wednesday that it is “winding down” its consumer finance division, a business that operates as HSBC Financial Corporation Ltd.

“The decision was made following a comprehensive review and assessment where it was determined that the consumer finance business no longer supports HSBC’s core businesses and growth strategy in Canada,” the bank in a release, noting that its first preference was to find a buyer for the operation that is home to about 1,000 employees based in about 75 offices across the country.

Last September, HSBC sold its retail brokerage business to National Bank Financial.

The move “will allow HSBC to better focus our resources on the core businesses that matter most to our Canadian banking customers,” said Lindsay Gordon, HSBC’s chief executive and chairman of HSBC Financial Corporation. From now on, HSB

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Short-term opportunities abound in this volatile market, particularly in indexes and sectors. Technical strategist, Mike Paulenoff, shares how he uses pattern recognition, oscillators, and market psychology overlaid with macroeconomic analysis to identify short-term opportunities in gold, oil, the dollar, the emini S&P and other indices and asset classes via their ETFs and leading component stocks. He will show how his strategy has resulted in 60% winning trades over the last five years.

Bio: Michael Paulenoff is a technical strategist and author of MPTrader.com a real-time diary of his index and sector analysis and trade alerts. He is a 33-year Wall Street veteran, formerly with Smith Barney, Harris Upham, Drexel Burnham Lambert, and Republic National Bank.

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Every week we get applications from prospects whose businesses and past experiences have “blemishes”.  In many cases, it seems that these companies are making a heroic “last ditch” effort to try and get business financing. There is nothing wrong with that……. except their approach. You see, many of these prospects tend to avoid mentioning the (known!) problems and only focus on telling us the nice things about their company. However, every factoring company does their due diligence with the specific intent of finding if prospects have problems. And factoring companies are known for being thorough in our research and will find most of them. For example, a simple public records search will show:

1. Lawsuits
2. Judgements
3. Liens (good and bad) 
4. Tax liens
5. Bankruptcies
6. Criminal backgrounds

Things get complicated when a prospect paints a rosy picture of their business only to have us find out that they have some (or all) of items 1 through 6. Fro Read full post…

In yet another instance of a big bank taking advantage of its customers, JPMorgan Chase is under investigation for shady debt collection practices of its credit card holders. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is working to uncover just how extensive these practices were over a period of at least two years time.

Chase keeps track of its credit card customers via three separate databases that evidently do not sync up with one another databases for 1) current account holders, 2) collections and litigtions, and 3) charge-offs. Unfortunately, outsider attorneys tasked with collecting on delinquent accounts often received access to information from only one of the three database systems. For years, Chase employees simply doubled-checked the accounts, making sure attorneys were suing customers based on accurate information.

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It seemed obvious several years ago that retirees would shoulder much of the burden of the financial crisis and its residual effects.

While events have generally played-out in line with this projection, the backlash from seniors has been surprisingly subdued.  The lack of pitchforks seems odd given the fact that the number of retirement age voters is increasing by 10,000 each day in the United States.

That said, the capital versus retirees story has been trending-up lately. This may have something to do with the election year.  It could also could be the result of millions of savers around the world starting to realize the implications of negative real interest rates as far as the eye can see.

Another aspect of this story that is starting to surface is that the taxpayer resources used to shore-up the banking system are not necessarily working there way–at least in a broad manner–back into the system.  

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Are you planning to begin a online organization, it is essential that you must understand the organization taxation program. Tax accountants can help you in the taxation aspect of establishing up your organization. It’s essential that you computer file your tax comes back on time and perfectly to remain in conformity and to avoid costly charges.

It’s uncomplicated to begin a business; you only thing you need a organization certificate if you make a limited organization, and when you’re organization is really little, you’re free from VAT. Although, limited organization or not, online organization or large, you’re required to computer file yearly tax comes back. Again, the standard business tax rate is already little, but you can ask tax accountants for guidance regarding tax-efficient components that can work for you.

With regards to home taxation, if you’re a non-resident entrepreneur, you are better off in a way because you are the only subject to taxation depending on the source earnings in that country of wish. Read full post…

Wouldnt you like to secure a financial future for you and your family, while worrying less and prospering in both up and down markets? Obviously, this is the American dream!  However, it is an achievable dream.

Here are 7  investing secrets to help you achieve these elusive goals:

1. Markets move in cycles. Learn to recognize these cycles and the investment strategies that prosper in that cycle. Right now we are in a secular bear market. Expect a lot of volatility and little long-term market movement within a large trading range.

2. Buy and hold wont work right now. The reason, see secret #1. You need an actively managed investment strategy to win in this environment.

3. T

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