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Home » Business And Finance Articles » What Is An Affinity Credit Card

What is an Affinity Credit Card?

Affinity credit cards are the fastest growing segment of the credit card market. An affinity credit card is just like a standard credit card â€" with one important difference. Every time you use it, you're making a donation to your favorite charity. By making an affinity card your major credit card, you can help make substantial donations to worthwhile charities just by using your credit card as you normally would.

Most people are familiar with the idea behind credit cards rewards programs. In order to convince buyers to use their credit cards to pay for purchases instead of cash, many credit card companies offer cards with built-in rewards. Those rewards may be cash back, or free miles with airlines, or discounts at the petrol station. When you choose an affinity card, the reward is in the form of a donation to the charity represented on the face of the card.

Affinity credit cards have been around since the mid-1980s, but they've only recently begun to become popular in the UK. By 1999, a major research firm in the UK reported that there were over 1500 different kinds of affinity cards currently in issue throughout the UK. Affinity card spending in that year topped 4.43 million pounds. At the usual rate of contribution (.25% of each transaction), that means that affinity credit card transactions were responsible for 1.1 million pounds donated to various charities.

When it comes to credit cards UK consumers have the choice of supporting cancer research, their local football club, a children's charity or just about any other sort of charity imaginable. Most affinity credit cards don't offer special rewards aside from the knowledge that you're supporting a worthy cause â€" but there are some exceptions. One affinity credit card linked to Christian Aid, for example, offers no balance transfer fee and 1.9% introductory interest rate on new purchases for six months.

Based on their use of affinity credit cards UK consumers are a goodhearted lot. According to one market survey completed in 2001, nearly 1 of every 4 adults in the UK carries an affinity card. That's a lot of charity going around â€" and why not? Using an affinity card lets people support their pet charities painlessly â€" without it costing them a single penny.

While charity cards are the most popular affinity cards, there are many other types of affinity credit cards as well. The labour unions were the first in the UK to offer their own affinity cards, co-branded with major national banks. Football clubs around the UK have partnered with banks so that you can choose a credit card that displays the logo of your favorite football club. You can choose an affinity credit card that will donate a portion of your purchases to your political affiliation, or support the local theater. More and more banks and financial institutions are making it easy for non-profit agencies to partner with them and offer an affinity card bearing their logo.

At www.moneyeverything.com/affinitycards you'll find the best credit card UK deals, including affinity cards for various charities and causes that are near to your heart.

And here is another random article you might be interested in...

The Excitement Of Online Foreign Currency Trading

Excitement on a computer, for some, until recently has been regulated to porn or computer games. Now there is a way to find excitement on the internet and generate money as well. That is by becoming an online foreign currency trader.

This is not changing dollars of local currency when you are on vacation. This is a business that trades about 1.3 trillion dollars a day currently and continues to grow. In fact, foreign currency trading is one of the biggest financial markets today.

It's the internet and the speed which information can be at a trader's fingertips that causes the currency values to fluctuate and that gives online trader the thrill of relying on instinct to make choices.

Because the market is on the internet, information is disseminated equally at the same speed. No one trader gets information faster than another. This gives you time to make good decisions.

Another bonus of online foreign currency trading is that it operates twenty four hours a day. This allows you to be more flexible. You can get updates no matter where you are. So people who are put off trading because of their jobs can participate online on the foreign currency market.

There are many foreign currency trading sites all over the Web. For the most part all you need to do is to register and you will be able to start immediately after. For those who are worried about the difficulties of understanding how to go about trading on the market, there is training available on these sites. They will help you set up and learn how to start making decisions on when to trade.

To be a successful foreign currency trader you must be confident, have good instincts, understand the risks you take with your money and enjoy the thrill of relying on your guts.