News Tips & Updates on Small Business Credit Cards

There are some really attractive offers for small-business credit cards around at the moment. You might find a sign-up bonus that could give you tens of thousands of free miles just for getting your application approved and meeting a spending threshold in the first three months after your account's opened. You might get extra-generous rewards. And you might find the cost of your borrowing cheaper. At the time of writing, this site's credit card rates monitor shows business rewards plastic charging an average APR more than two percentage points lower than that for consumer rewards cards: 15.53 percent against 17.87 .......

Do you own or manage one of the nearly 28 million small businesses in America? If so, you'd have been exceptionally lucky to have avoided some of the very nasty effects of the credit crunch, recession and slow recovery. Even long-established enterprises struggled to cope as revenues fell while overheads remained stubbornly high. Often staff had to be let go, but even that wasn't always enough keep companies profitable. Meanwhile, traditional borrowing became next to impossible, and many began to carry forward ever-rising balances on small business credit cards. That wasn't ideal, but such considerations become an unaffordable luxury when .......

There's no point in owning or starting a business unless you believe in your idea wholeheartedly. Trouble is, it's easy to persuade yourself that the concept on which you're basing your entire venture is better than it really is. One of the best things about applying for a business loan -- perhaps one backed by the federal Small Business Administration -- from a professional lender is that a pair of clinically cold eyes is going to be cast over your business plan. Many of the assumptions it contains are likely to be challenged, and a dose of realism can rescue you .......

Three credit card companies unveiled enhancements to their small-business products during the last 10 days of June. Here are the highlights of their announcements. American Express, the Plum Card and cash flow First up, American Express, which sets out to help entrepreneurs with their cash flow. For those with the company's Plum Card, this help can take two alternative forms: Discount for early payments -- If you settle 10 percent or more of your balance within 10 days of your statement's closing date, you stand to receive a 1.5 percent discount on the sum you pay. Extra time to pay -- As long as .......

On Jan. 16, The Wall Street Journal published a piece heralding "The Return of Small Business Credit Cards." However, the article also contained some warnings about the pitfalls these cards can present to the unwary. But before we get on to the problems that can arise, let's look at why business credit cards are often a smart choice for many entrepreneurs: They're generally unsecured, so, unlike many forms of business borrowing, you don't have to put your house or other assets on the line. For careful users, they can offer low interest rates. They're often easier to get than other forms of commercial .......

FICO, the company behind the nation's most popular (no, wait: the nation's most widely used) credit scoring system, recently commissioned a survey of of 272 risk managers at banks. It's hard to conceive of a more tedious task than holding a conversation with any "professional risk manager," let alone one employed in the American banking sector, but someone has to do it. Anyway, the survey's findings did contain some interesting facts. Business credit card use likely to rise When asked whether they expected demand for credit from small businesses to grow in the next six months, 74 percent of respondents said yes. .......

Everyone should take precautions against identity fraud, but if you use a credit card for your business, you should be extra careful. Small-business owners suffered identity fraud at 1.5 times the rate of other adults, according to the latest identity fraud survey report by Javelin Strategy & Research, a San Francisco-based provider of research on financial services. Why? Small-business owners simply make more transactions than typical adults because they use credit cards for both personal and business use. In fact, 86 percent of entrepreneurs reported using credit cards primarily or exclusively for business, according to the National Small Business Association 2009 credit card .......

Small business owners often turn to credit cards for all kinds of purchases. That's because they often find it tough to qualify for loans from banks. Here are some of the pros and cons of using credit cards for financing a business. Pros of Business Credit Cards If you're boot-strapping it to get your business going, you probably have little cash available to you. A business credit card can allow you to buy what's needed to get your company off the ground. Purchases can be made at the time you need them, instead of waiting to get approval for a business loan. .......