Dirty Dealing? Bank Overdraft Lawsuits Getting Settled

Another bank has reached a tentative settlement in response to charges that it manipulated customer checking accounts in order to trigger multiple bank overdraft penalties.

Green Bay, Wisconsin-based Associated Bank has agreed to pay $13 million to settle lawsuits brought in 2009. More than 30 U.S. banks, including Bank of America, Wells Fargo, HSBC, Citibank, JP Morgan Chase, and PNC are accused of similar practices.

Struggling to verify your checking account balance? Get a fresh start on balancing a checkbook here, now.

If you have an existing checking account and have not been balancing it each month, then you have three options in order to get your account balanced.

1. Stop trying to figure out your checking account balance and simply open a new account: this is perhaps the easiest way to start fresh. You will be able to start over with an initial balance of zero and not have to find previous bank statements to begin balancing your account. If you have had your account for a while and getting a new account is easily done, then I would recommend this approach.

Balancing a checkbook: if you answer “yes” to either of these questions, then you really need to read this blog post!

1. Are you calling your bank everyday to get the checking account balance in your business account – and then writing checks based on this balance?
2. Are you constantly bouncing your checking account and incurring massive overdraft fees?

Here’s the reality. When you aren’t keeping track of your checking account balance, then you could be throwing money away. Even more importantly, you may never know if you’re actually making money in your business.

Three Creative Ways to Grow Your Small Business

With your larger competitors’ deep pockets, vast budgets and endless resources, it may seem next to impossible to not only compete, but to capture market share from these stalwarts. However, there are some simple and extremely creative ways to grow your small business. In fact, these approaches allow small business owners to not only capitalize on their larger competition’s deficiencies, but to use them to put plans in motion to increase sales. Interested in knowing what these approaches are?

Trends suggest that 2009 will be challenging for entrepreneurs and small businesses wanting to raise operating capital or improve cash flow management.

Scott Shane shares his perspective in his excellent article, “Top 5 Trends for Small Business Finance in 2009.”