Survey: Average card APR remains near record high + MORE May 5th

News, Tips & Tricks Recently mbna released a new mbna Rewards MasterCard. Think of it as the entry level version of their popular mbna Rewards World Elite MasterCard. This new card carries no annual fee and comes with a 5,000 point sign up bonus worth $50 towards any travel or cash back. The card earns 1 mbna Rewards point per dollar which equates to a 1% return. Pretty standard for a no fee card! You can find our more about the card here and also check it out on the following Rewards Canada comparison pages: Travel Points & All Travel Credit CardsYou can donate Aeroplan Miles to help with the Ft. McMurray wildfire. Aeroplan themselves started it off with a donation of 1 million miles. Find out more here.Over on FFB we cover American AAdvantage’s 35th Anniversary promotion. Canadians can’t enter the contest portion but we should have no problem getting the 350 or 700 FREE AAdvantage miles! Find out more here. Posts since our last update:Top 5 Credit Card Sign Up offers for May Here are the Rewards Canada Top 5 Credit Card Sign Up offers for the month of May! This is not…Registration now open for SPG’s Triple Up – Earn up to Triple Starpoints on your Starwood stays Worldwide Registration is now open for Starwood Preferred Guest’s next global promotion called Triple Up…

May 4, 2016: Average rates on new credit card offers remained unchanged this week, according to the CreditCards.com Weekly Credit Card Rate Report.

Here are the Rewards Canada Top 5 Credit Card Sign Up offers for the month of May! This is not a ‘best’ credit card list like our Top Travel Rewards Credit Card rankings but instead a look at cards that have very good acquisition offers. As always when choosing a card you should always take other factors into account other than the sign up bonus, but when most or all of these cards are first year free, they can and do pay off even when not taking into account insurance packages and other non-reward benefits. In fact 4 out of 5 cards on this list for May are first year free so you can try many of them out at no cost, get over $1,000 in rewards and decide later on if the card is right for you. All the while earning the sign up bonus which can be used to subsidize your travels!  Just ensure you drop any cards you don’t like before your 1st year anniversary.    We’ve brought the Starwood card back in even though it has an annual fee. It is still one of the best cards out there with the sign up bonus being worth well over $400 alone meaning after the annual fee you’ll net at least $280 in value if not more meaning it provides more value than the TD First Class Visa Infinite card which we featured last month…

MONTREAL – National Bank of Canada expects to record $195 million of provisions for credit losses, providing a drag on its second-quarter earnings.
The provisions include $183 million for loans to oil and gas producers and $12 million for specific loans.
National Bank estimates the sectoral provision will reduce its second-quarter earnings by 54 cents per share.
Analysts have been estimating National Bank would have about $1.14 per share of earnings for the quarter, which ended April 30, according to Thomson Reuters.
The Montreal-based bank (TSX:NA) says the credit performance of its overall loan portfolio, excluding the oil and gas producers, is within expectations.
Its full second-quarter financial report is scheduled to be released on June 1.
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WASHINGTON – Mortgage giant Fannie Mae posted net income of $1.1 billion for the first quarter, down from a year ago as declining interest rates reduced the value of the financial instruments it uses to hedge against rate swings.
The results announced Thursday for the January-through-March period marked the 17th straight profitable quarter for the government-controlled company. The first-quarter profit compared with net income of $1.9 billion a year earlier.
Washington-based Fannie is paying a dividend of $919 million to the U.S. Treasury next month. Fannie will then have paid a total $148.5 billion in dividends, exceeding the $116 billion it received from taxpayers during the financial crisis.
The government rescued Fannie and smaller sibling Freddie Mc at the height of the crisis in September 2008.
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