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I have just been having a detailed look at quite a good website which specialises in credit card information; what cards are available/the best rates/ which cards are recommended by the experts. The thing that appealed to me first off is it’s impartiality; there’s no particular provider or card being pushed at you and I’m comfortable with that. So, if you are looking around for a new or replacement credit card at the moment you could say this site is as close to a brokerage service as you can get - and it’s free of course.

Credit Card Best  are what I would call credit cards specialists in that they offer listings and reviews of all the best deals available at the moment. Despite the current economic woes people still need access to credit - it is a standard requirement of life today - and when you consider that many people are not happy with the current interest rates on the cards they already possess they will be looking to transfer balances and change providers. Everyone seems to be doing this at the moment. You will find the information is categorized into which particular deal you are after:

* O% interest on balance transfers

* low APR/low intro APR offers

* cards with rewards schemes

* deals for those customers outside the USA  ( Canada and the United Kingdom )

* company cards

* cards for students; those with excellent credit; those with poor/no credit…

What you need to do is set aside a decent amount of time to adequately assess all the information provided here; they provide a run down of the top rated cards at the moment - they rate both good credit and bad credit cards - plus detail how to go about applying for the one you prefer. Take their advice though and apply online - it’s the easiest and quickest way to go about things - and the providers are all from the leading financial institutions.

 If you tried to do all this through reading the financial section of your newspaper it would take about a week; here you having everything you need to know all on one site. Like I said though, set aside plenty of time to look through the site and they suggest, quite rightly, make sure you read all the small print as well as any terms and conditions before you go ahead with an application.

Popularity: 16% [?]

If the current situation continues I guess you could answer yes to that question. Many Brit’s have moved across to Europe - France and Spain being the biggest attraction - but also many remortgaged their UK homes in order to make speculative investments in housing developments in countries like Poland and Bulgaria. A few years back a good number would have recouped their money plus profit but now most are sitting with a huge loss.

Interest rates have risen sharply across the board causing a marked drop in people borrowing to buy properties; add into the equation the inflation rate of 28% in countries such as Poland and the drop by 7% in house prices in Ireland and what you have is a very gloomy outlook for the near future.

Take Bulgaria for example: Irish and British investors are sitting with their money sunk in large new housing developments there with no hope of any purchasers just yet. Yes, the properties are dirt cheap by UK standards, but who wants to buy a property that will be worth less in a few years than what they originally paid for it?

Property owners in Spain are doing it pretty tough as well; thousands of expat homeowners there are finding it almost impossible to sell their properties for any kind of profit - you can also blame recent bad publicity surrounding corrupt developers around the Costa’s for this though.

The old adage  ’it never rains but pours’ somehow comes to mind; either prices are right up or sitting on the ground - those pulling the strings of the economy can’t seem to get the balancing act right.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Okay, so you might be thinking ‘haven’t we heard enough about these places?’ and fair enough, services offering these types of loans do seem to be popping up all over the place now but, as with everything in business, there is a huge difference between those which are of the fly-by-night variety and those which actually do provide a real and legitimate service to the community. And just how do you differentiate…? I tend to look for certain aspects with the main focus on looking to see if the company follows a set code of practice and code of ethics. A record of established service; yes, testimonials also help; how long has the company been trading and also just doing some general homework on the company’s background.

Following this little set of rules usually arms you with enough information to make an informed decision about whether or not to proceed with doing business with them.

However, let’s take a look at a particular company offering Pay Day Loans right now. It really pays to do this (if you will mind the pun); one tends to read about the bad apples and hear only the horror stories surrounding the practices in this industry, one thing that needs focusing on is a company that plays by the rules and offers a genuine service to it’s valued customers.

PayDay One distinguish themselves from many of their lesser competitors in what has become an alternative consumer credit market. Basically, the Pay Day loan offers an individual an option that the banks do not; a short term loan based on a term of days/weeks rather than months/years. As yet the banks refuse to offer such a service to the population, for various reasons, but - call me cynical if you like - I find it rather contradictory in that the banks will offer the funding and banking to the PDL companies themselves whereas they refuse the basic service to the loan customers. But that’s banks for you anyway…

The benefits you expect…

The customer approaching Payday One can be assured that they are no flighty offshore organisation; this company is based and licensed in the United States with branches covering thirty-three of the United States which gives them a higher profile and thus greater establishment than their competitors.  Their service ethic is customer-oriented, customer friendly and sympathetic.

The service you deserve…

The company prides itself on their philosophy that each branch is not so much a company, but rather a team. As a customer you are also regarded as the employer; they fail themselves if they fail you. They also recognise that many people seek their service to address a difficult period in their life and act to afford each individual respect and confidentiality. In achieving this customers are encouraged to take advantage of using their online application process; they offer the confidentiality of not having to sit opposite a face in a suit and suffer any embarrassment; nor the need to fax endless forms and a very fast 24 hour turnaround for payment of your funds.

Now for the BIG questions - how much, for how long and what about interest rates?…

Well, this is what it all leads up to in the end. Of course the figures have to be the number one concern, but you will find that PayDay One manage to keep those figures down well enough to make them not so much of a concern to you. Consider this; the average complaint about the payday loan industry naturally is the amount of interest charged by other companies and you have to be honest and agree that this is what puts the industry in a bad light from time to time.  However, PayDay One offer the lowest guaranteed interest rates on their State Licensed Cash Advances; this is what places them at the top of the tree in this industry.

On average a basic payday loan with other companies will go like this…

* you borrow $200 over 14 days; you pay back anything between $250-$290. Unbelievable eh?

* the longer the term over the four weeks the higher the rate you pay.

But with PayDay One…

* you are guaranteed the lowest interest rates (per your State according to the APR)

* example for California clients: borrow $200 over 14 days; pay back $235. Same rate applies to terms 10/21/31 days.

Do some checking around just as I have done and you will find that the company stands by it’s claims of offering the lowest rates around. Whereby they do have one thing in common with their competitors in that they offer the same product - a cash loan - the difference with PayDay One is that you also get real customer service added in…at no extra charge.

Popularity: 15% [?]