Month: December 2007

journalism

Cover yourself before you travel

The Australian, Wealth TRAVEL insurance is one of those products that few travellers pay attention to, whether they are begrudgingly buying a policy or relying on cover provided through top-end credit cards. For that reason, travel insurance remains one of the most complained about financial products in Australia. “It’s about 18 per cent of all our work for what would be a small partner in the insurance portfolio,” insurance industry ombudsman Sam Parrino says. “That is a lot of work […]

journalism

Aussies pay dearly for overseas currency conversions

The Australian, Wealth IT’S time for Christmas shopping and many people will be visiting Singapore and Hong Kong or the duty-free halls for their seasonal spending sprees. But retailers could be taking-advantage of the festive spirit by offering payment in Australian dollars and adding a surcharge to foreign currency conversion fees. Called dynamic currency conversion, surcharging payments made in Australian dollars is perfectly legitimate. But this is one of the many pitfalls when spending abroad and is a matter of […]

journalism

Social media is the new thing, and it’s rapidly being integrated into business.

IN THE BLACK Are you a knowledge worker or a pen pusher? The likelihood is that you are the former, which means you are about ideas and -collaboration. In that case, the expressions ‘social media’, ‘Web 2.0’, or more importantly, ‘Enterprise 2.0’, should be in your vocabulary, even if you don’t have a profile on Facebook. While these ideas may seem a threat to old-school types, the reality is that most social media users are Generation Xers and Yers – […]