| Big U.S. banks vary widely on protecting consumers from fraud
Bank of America Corp. took top honors for the second year in a row in a report ranking the largest U.S. banks on how well they protect their customers from fraud and identity theft.J.P. Morgan Chase, Washington Mutual Inc. and Wells Fargo Co. tied for second place, and Citibank came in third in the study published by Javelin Strategy & Research.The study looked at 25 banks that together hold 50 percent of U.S. checking account deposits and counted only banks that have a brick-and-mortar presence. The study measured banks’ policies for preventing, detecting and resolving fraud, focusing on measures that consumers experience, not internal bank security policies. .
SNP accused of breaking its promise to cut class sizes
ALEX Salmond was attacked yesterday for breaking another key election pledge - this time to cut school class sizes. At First Minister's Questions, he was accused of backing down on his promise to reduce class sizes to 18 for the first three years of primary school by 2011. .
Fourth-graders get a handle on finances via mock accounts
Some of the fourth-grade students at Oakdale and Independence elementary schools won't be overdrafting their bank accounts anytime soon. That's because Family Trust Federal Credit Union has started a mock credit union which teaches the young students how to manage money in one class at each of those schools. Students earn credit union bucks, which are similar to Monopoly money, for good behavior. Every other week, representatives from Family Trust help the students deposit the bucks into their mock accounts. Students log their transactions in a register and can write checks to purchase hard-earned prizes at the Family Trust general store. "It's a great opportunity for the students, not only for their behavior, but also giving them the real-life experiences of handling their money and saving it," said Oakdale Principal Neil McVann.
Funding worries close library
There won't be a children's story time at the North Shore Library today, nor will the library's doors be open again any time soon. The building was locked up last weekend after members of the Julie Thurston Library Guild decided it had to be done. It will be closed until further notice. "This was a very difficult decision for the guild to make, but they've been putting it off as long as they could," said Meg Schneider, president of the library's board of directors. "It wasn't easy to do this but we have run out of options." In recent months, things had begun looking up for the struggling library on the North Shore of Oneida Lake in Constantia. After years of surviving on a shoestring, thanks to bake sales and plant sales and book sales and private donations, the library seemed poised to receive financial assistance from the town.
BarCap reveals £1.3bn writedown
Barclays Capital, the investment banking arm of UK bank Barclays, took a £1.3bn (€1.8bn) hit on credit-related securities linked to US sub-prime after it yielded to pressure from analysts and investors to reveal its exposure in advance of its trading statement. .
Cascade Bank's name used in fraud scheme
Let's get right to the point: Everett-based Cascade Bank is not e-mailing you trying to get you to verify your account or to do anything else with online banking.
But somebody else is.
And what they're really looking to do is to rip you off.
Like many of its counterparts around the country, Cascade has been targeted recently in an Internet scheme called phishing.
You've probably heard of it before. Phishing (pronounced fishing) is where someone masquerades as a trusted organization, government agency or business and tries to hook you into revealing information so they can tap into your financial accounts or your credit.
Carol Nelson, Cascade's president and CEO, has been learning a lot about phishing these days as the bank has brought in some federal agents to help it crack down on mass e-mails and to shut down the fake bank sites that the messages direct people to.
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