Welcome to the Logix SmartLab

Fraudsters don’t take vacations for the holidays. In fact, they only have happy holidays if they are successful  in ruining yours! There are three important steps in preventing holiday fraud – let’s call them Ho Ho Ho:

We should clarify a bit of confusion about our tagline, "smarter banking." We aren’t a bank. We never have been a bank, and we never will be a bank. You see “smarter banking” in our tagline, because, quite simply, that’s what we offer.

Contrary to popular belief, using a credit card to make purchases instead of cash can be a very healthy practice - especially if you don't carry a balance and you use a rewards credit card like our Platinum Rewards MasterCard. But there are four things nobody should ever put on a credit card:

Electromagnets: Electromagnets can damage the magnetic strip on your credit card, rendering them useless except in cases where the number is manually entered. (Such as an Amazon purchase.)

Other people's names: In the signature strip on the back of your card, never put another person's name or doodles of any sort. This space should be reserved for your own signature and other markings are not advisable.

White hot molten metal: As with the electromagnet, white hot molten metal (such as the kind one finds in steel mills or the volcanic planet Mustafar from Star Wars III) should not be put on a credit card except in dire circumstances, and NEVER while in your pocket. (Am I right, Brian?) The card will likely melt causing damage to the card or extreme pain if it touches the skin.

• Logix Haiku         

We are not a bank

Let’s face it: nobody likes to pay a fee. At Logix, we’re especially keen on limiting fees to our members, and this 2015 independent study by Consumer Reports indicates that our members think we’re doing a great job of keeping fees low.

Well it’s that time of year again—when you need to think about holiday gifts.

In my Finance 101 class, my teacher taught us about the time value of money, also known as “present discounted value.” The general concept is this: the money in your change jar is worth more today than it will be tomorrow because it has opportunity to earn that extra day of interest. The time value of money is, for example, why the government loves sending you a tax refund. They know that you’ve loaned them free money each month, so any interest they gained could have been yours.