June 24, 2010
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News: NZ; A Good Place To Live.
Someone told me not long ago that if you want a good place to work, go to New Zealand. As a journalist whose greatest interest is in the credit card industry, I decided to see what I could find out about New Zealand's interests in protecting their citizens. I learned that the country is responsible for a new innovation that aims to reduce credit card fraud. The new software-based technology for reducing credit-card fraud was first introduced by the Bank of New Zealand two years ago who has since applied for global patents on several parts of the technology. The program has been so successful that the National Australia Bank is rolling the new fraud protection technology out to its own credit card customers as well
The new technology could be a contributing factor as credit card consumers increased spending during the month of May. According to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, after a decrease of 1.6 percent in April, New Zealand's overall spending increased to 1.9 percent in May. New Zealand's domestic spending also increased in May to 1.8 percent following a 1.8 percent decrease in the month of April. The greatest increase came from overseas spending which increased by 2.3 percent during the month of May following a slight increase of 0.5 percent in April. In comparison to the same time last year, New Zealand increased credit card spending by an overall average of 3.4% in May, following the 0.7% rise in April. Domestic card spending in 2009 rose 3.7% while overseas card spending was up 1.2%.
Although things are looking good in the fraud and spending departments for New Zealand, the country has been plagued by its recent sandal of abusive credit card spending by some of its top officials. One minister in particular, Shane Jones, who used his government issued card to pay for porn while traveling on business. The financial stability of the country doesn't seem to be effected by the scandal, however, it would appear that Jones' political career might just be over. Never the less, this journalist concurs that New Zealand is a good place to live.