Increasing Your Student Loan – Personal Finance Tools
Gaining a university degree is not easy. Firstly, there is the competition involved. Then there are the financial arrangements to be sorted out since everyone knows that a university degree is not cheap. A good university education helps students land a good job with brighter career prospects. This in turn leads to better lives and hopefully more financially secure futures as well.Now, in order to fund for one’s college or university degree, it is necessary to take student loans. Of course, these student loans need to be repaid. But the key is to know how much and when to repay. A good financial management tool helps students make informed decisions about the loans they are taking from financial institutions.A huge burdensome loan is the difference between taking the help of a good online financial management tool and doing it by one’s own limited knowledge. If you have access to good financial advice, by all means go ahead. But if you cannot, then your next best bet is to get a good online finance management tool. This tool will help you figure out your monthly budget, calculate how much your are borrowing, how much you need to save per month to repay the loan on an assumed salary once you graduate.The one issue with a student loan is that it needs to be repaid no matter what your circumstances. Unlike credit card debt which can be wiped clean if you are declared bankrupt, a student loan is there forever or until you repay it.A personal finance tool is of great help as it will manage your budget, advice on maximum spending limits and suggested savings so that you can plan for a secure future.
5 Common Mistakes That You Should Not Make If You Want to Get an Internship With a Top Bank
You are a student and you really want to be in a top paid position in a well-known bank. You know that you will probably have to find an internship first. And you are correct; most people working in the finance industry found their first job through an internship.However, the fact it is an internship does not mean it is easy to get. Recruitment processes in banks are tough because there are so many candidates. You have to understand how they work or you will not maximise your chances.Here are 5 common mistakes that students make when they apply for an internship in a bank.1. Apply for the wrong type of internshipBanks have different programs for students, depending on previous internship experience and the number of years of study you have left before graduation. If you apply for the wrong one, your application will likely be discarded.Usually you start with a spring or an off cycle internship if you have 2 or 3 years left before graduation. Doing this kind of internship is not mandatory, but will increase your chances of getting onto the next programs.Then, when you have one year remaining before graduation, you can apply for a summer internship. This is really important if you want to get into finance. Banks use these programs to identify those that will enter their graduate programs the following year. If you skip this step, it will be much harder to get onto a graduate program.2. Only applying for the bank of your dreamsSome students will apply only for the four or five top banks they really want to work for, thinking the others are not worth it. If you are serious about getting into finance, you should not do this. The truth is that you should enlarge the scope of your applications as much as possible. Everybody is applying for the top banks, they are bombarded by applications each year. Even if you maximise your chances with good preparation, it is still not enough to ensure that you will get an internship. There are enough good candidates like you for banks to choose from and sometimes between two similar profiles it can even come down to pure luck.You also should not compromise what you want to do in order to get into a top bank. Believe me, it is a lot easier to settle for a good fitting internship in a medium ranked bank than an internship in one of the best bank that does not match what you want to do ultimately.3. Believing that a deadline far in the future means you can wait to send your applicationIf you want to apply for a summer internship or a graduate program, you should send your application as soon as it opens (ie, usually September of the previous year). While it is true that most banks have deadlines set as far away as March of the year of the internship, you have virtually no chance of being successful with an internship application if you apply just before the deadline. That is because banks do not wait to review applications. They have several interview sessions throughout the year and once they are full they will not even look at other applications. You have to get into the first interview session (usually in October/November). This is when recruiters are most open to “non-perfect” candidates.4. Thinking that filling the online application is enoughThe online application is important and you should put a lot of efforts into it. However, it may not be enough to guarantee success.There are so many candidates for bank internships that if you want your chances to be high, you need to differentiate yourself from others. Most banks organise events on campuses where you can meet and talk with people from the banks. It is essential that you go to at least one of these events, and that you talk with people there. If you make a good impression, they will give you their business card, then you will be able to tell the HR person that you met with this person and that you had a nice conversation. It will have a very positive impact on your application. If they really like your profile they can even recommend you directly to the HR department. If it happens, congratulations, you are certain to get an interview.If there are no events on your campus, you can go to the bank career website and look for events organised near your location. Then you can send an application for the event.5. Focusing too much on finance skills in your applicationIf you want to work in finance, you need of course to know at least the basics of your field (derivatives, interest rates etc for market finance, the usual valuation ratios for corporate finance). However, recruiters expect every candidate to be knowledgeable on these topics. You also need something that will differentiate your application: add something more to it, such as a technical skill. There are a lot of strong finance-oriented profiles, and a lot of good technical profiles. But there are so few candidates that can combine both skills and they are the favourites of the banks. Today, finance is all about automation and algorithm. Banks know that, and they want their future employees to be comfortable with the new digital age. So learn a programming language (or more than one) and put it on your resume.Once you have an interview you will need to prepare for it. You can try this free eBook that is specifically designed to help candidates in market finance to prepare for their interview.
Health News Today
But the truth is to enlighten the fact that, no matter how much you try to keep up with your health, age and lifestyle will certainly trap you into some disease or illness, even if it’s a smaller one. And there’s no doubt about one thing that with changing time not only the number, but also the severity of disease also increases.This is where health news comes to our rescue. Earlier we could receive health news only through news papers and health brochures, but with the cyber revolution we have so many health news blogs, websites, and discussion boards to give us latest information on different health issues.By keeping in touch with the latest health news we also come to know about public health concerns like blood donation camps, kidney or eye donation programs conducted by government health institutes.There is no dearth of diseases in today’s world, but there are some fatal diseases which raise a lot of concern in society, like cancer, AIDS and diabetes are some of the volatile diseases that take thousands of lives every year. These are diseases that even the people not suffering from should be concerned about.To commemorate the significance of these diseases and to spread awareness among people we dedicate certain days to them.Like 1st December is celebrated as World Cancer Day and 4th February is the World AIDS Day and November 4th is the World Diabetes DAY.Children health news is also very important, as they help us to get all the facts about infant and adolescence health, because with growing age every parent has concerns about their kids or teenager’s health. Change in hormones, proper growth of bones, height and weight ratio, puberty are few things every parent wants to talk about.Even maternal health news is of equal importance because it involves both fetal and maternal health. Providing proper care to the mother and the baby, like the type of food exercise, or environment that can keep both the mother and the baby healthy is equally important.Healthier the person better is his or her lifestyle, so why not keep in touch with the latest development in the health news and make our lives pink of health.
How Google Reader and Google Alerts Can Help Your Internet Business
Many people spend hours each day researching the latest and greatest internet marketing tools and their competitors to get their internet business on the cutting edge. Google has two tools that can really help you stay on top of the most recent information without you spending any of your precious time doing the research yourself. Google does all the research for you and alerts you of new information on topics that are important to you. Two of these tools are Google Reader and Google Alerts. They can work hand-in-hand as your research assistant and give you more time to work on other projects or give you more free time with your family.Google Reader is a tool that constantly checks your favorite news sites and blogs for updated content so that you do not have to spend time checking them all yourself. It is a consolidated view of all your favorite sites and shows you when updates are available for topics that you find important. You don’t have to spend hours searching each individual site for new information. Google Reader does all the hard work for you and saves you tons of time. It also makes sharing the information you find with friends and networking partners easy, too. It even allows you to post the information on your blog or website to give it fresh content without taking tons of your time. A tool like Google Reader can allow you to become a much more efficient internet marketer, which is a priceless tool for any internet business owner.Another tool that can work with Google Reader is Google Alerts. Google Alerts takes things to the next level by emailing you whenever new results for your search terms show up on Google. You can also have your Google Alerts sent to your Google Reader account or iGoogle page. This tool gives you tons of options. You can get updates on news, videos, web pages, blogs and Google groups. Google Alerts allows you to decide how often you want to receive updates, whether it is once a day or each time there are updates; you can customize Google Alerts to fit your needs.These tools allow you to keep your business on the cutting edge by keeping you current with moves that your competition are making and staying current with changes in your industry. Real-time information like this can be priceless towards the growth of your company. Google is full of amazing information, and with tools like these it can be easy to stay on top of things without spending tons of time doing research. With the time these tools can save you, you can get ahead of the competition and enjoy more time with your family and friends. These tools can really help you with your internet marketing research so that you can grow and expand your company faster and more efficiently. They make it easy to find out about the latest internet marketing techniques and keep you ahead of your competition. Go and give them a try and see how amazing Google Reader and Google Alerts can be.
What are anti-ligature blinds?
Anti-ligature blinds are becoming increasingly popular in a range of different settings. The way these blinds differ from traditional blinds is that they are designed to prevent suicide by hanging.
Initially, uptake for this type of blind was largely restricted to high-risk environments such as psychiatric hospitals and prisons, where suicide is common. In mental health environments and detention centres, suicide via hanging is common and preventative measures must be implemented. A huge range of objects could be used to create a ligature point, meaning anti-ligature systems are highly important.
Over the years, anti-ligature blinds have been supplied to hospitals, schools, student accommodation and even hotels.
How do they work?
There are a range of different systems on the market, but the most reliable could well be the magnetic anti-ligature system. YewdaleKestrel® products utilise load release magnets which separate when a downward force is exerted on the product. This means that the product falls to the ground safely and prevents suicide via hanging.
The magnetic systems used in Yewdale’s products are highly reliable because magnets don’t lose their strength for hundreds of years, guaranteeing a lifetime of lifesaving functionality.
Anti-ligature blinds usually have a magnetic connection point above the blind’s barrel. The blind is easy to reconnect to the magnetic bracket after it has fallen to the floor.
If you are considering an anti-ligature blind, Yewdale is a highly recommended company. Based in the UK, Yewdale produce a wide range of anti-ligature products, commercial blinds, and healthcare products including hospital cubicle tracks and medical curtains.
Yewdale produce other anti-ligature products too including a soft, lightweight en-suite door and other accessories such as soap dispensers, toilet roll holder, shelves and artwork. You can see the full range on the website using the link below.
Complete weight loss strategy
For those who want to lose weight
Research on the causes of obesity, knowledge about weight loss, and various diets for weight loss are updated every year. However, with the update of knowledge and the release of diet pills one after another, the obesity rate continues to rise every year, and there is no sign of wanting to decline. I used to be very, very fat, and I am also a person who is prone to obesity.
So I understand the voices of fat people, I really want to lose weight, but I tried many ways to lose weight at that time without success.
I have tried the common boiled meals on the market, eating less and moving more, but it was not until I tried other diets that I managed to lose weight. After I lost weight, I began to study the essence and method of losing weight, and wrote him in this weight loss strategy article, hoping to help you.
A few key myths about losing weight
The weight loss myth of eating less and moving more
The phrase “eat less and move more” is actually true, but most people do it wrong. Many people think that they should eat less of everything, so they limit their calories to a very low level, and it feels a bit like eating an ultra-low-calorie fairy meal. Then, for the hyperactive part, the first thing that everyone thinks of is aerobic exercise such as running, cycling, etc., but in fact, this is a very short-term and easy way to regain weight, mainly because eating too little is an easy way to lose weight. The reason for the loss of muscle mass, coupled with the fact that aerobic training is not helpful for muscle mass growth, causes the metabolism to drop too much.
Maybe you can lose 5 kilograms in this way, but if your metabolism declines, you will easily regain the weight. And it’s all the fat that gets back up, not the muscle you lose that makes you look fatter than before. This is what we call the yo-yo effect, lose weight, get fat back, get fatter than before, lose weight, get back on Fat, get fatter than before.
Stop taking diet pills and meal replacements
At this time, you may start to seek other ways, eat weight loss meal replacements, taking diet pills, and so on. But believe me, most diet pills will inevitably hurt the body, especially the gastrointestinal tract. You may actually lose weight in the moment, but when your gastrointestinal tract is damaged, you will be fatter than before.
The key to understanding how to lose weight
You must have thought, why some people will not gain weight no matter what they eat, while some people will gain a kilogram the next day after eating a little bread? What is the cause of obesity? This is not a simple answer that can be solved!
You can see the link to the picture below, mainly talking about the influencing factors of obesity, which are very, very complicated.
Image source: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/296290/obesity-map-full-hi-res.pdf
In the middle of this picture is the heat balance
So we can know that calorie balance is very important
But this article doesn’t keep preaching that calorie balance is the key to losing weight like other sites
If you don’t know what calorie balance is, you can probably imagine that our body has calorie consumption (exercise, thermogenesis, basal metabolism), and calorie intake (eating).
When calorie consumption exceeds calorie intake, the weight will drop, so the truth of weight loss is to eat less and move more, very simple. In the short term, it is really possible to simply achieve weight loss by eating less and moving more, but simplicity is not simple, because the operation of the body is very complicated. Many people think that they can control their calorie consumption, that they can achieve a lot of calorie expenditure by running all the time, and that eating fairy meals (low-calorie meals) can reduce calorie intake and then easily lose it.
However, according to research, 90% of people who use calorie control, eat less and move more to lose weight will fail or regain the weight.
Because eating less and moving more for too long, metabolism will easily drop, hormones will easily become imbalanced, and muscle mass will easily be lost. Even if you lose 10 kilograms, you will easily regain weight.
When losing weight, the body is like a factory
For me, the key to long-term weight loss and maintaining good posture is the environment in the body, such as hormones, the level of inflammation in the body, and the gastrointestinal system.
Think of the body as a factory
-Your hormones are the managers and workers of factory operations
-Inflamed condition is how good factory machinery and hardware are
-Calorie intake is wages for factories as well as fuel
If the manager of this factory is an idiot, or if the hardware in your factory is completely rotten, then no matter how it works, it will create a pile of waste. Just as our hormones are already out of balance and the level of inflammation in the body is very high, no matter how much you eat, if you don’t solve the existing problems, it will easily accumulate into fat. It may be easier to understand with a few examples.
Hormones vs Weight Loss
This study looked at the effects of sleep and weight loss
Research source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20921542
Both groups of humans were calorie-restricted, but one group slept 5.5 hours a night and the other 8.5 hours. Both groups lost weight, but the group that slept less lost 55 percent less body fat and 65 percent more muscle mass than the group that slept more. It is equivalent to losing weight, but most of the loss is muscle mass, which reduces metabolism and makes it easy to regain weight later.
There is such a big difference mainly because poor sleep has a negative impact. The imbalance of the secretion of these things will easily increase fat and reduce muscle.
This next study looks at the effect of insulin sensitivity on body composition!
Research source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19471290
Basically, many chronic metabolic diseases, obesity, and poor muscle-building effects are closely related to low insulin sensitivity. Insulin is an anti-catabolic hormone whose main function is to store nutrients in cells. For example, after heavy training, our muscles will be more sensitive to insulin, and the nutrients we eat will be more easily absorbed into the muscles. When insulin sensitivity is low, the nutrients we eat are more likely to be stored as fat rather than absorbed into muscles.
We can simply say that the nutrients in the food eaten by people who are insulin insensitive are more likely to be stored as fat, and the relative fat mass will be much higher than the muscle mass.
To put it simply, the key to losing weight is actually to improve hormones, improve inflammation in the body, and add an appropriate calorie deficit. It is not difficult to achieve a calorie deficit. What is more difficult is how to choose the type of food that suits your body to improve hormones and achieve a long-term good body.
If you only pursue short-term weight loss and rely on a lot of calorie deficits to achieve the effect of weight loss, and then the hormones are still the same after the loss, then I can guarantee that you will gain weight very easily.
With so many ways to eat on the internet, which diet should I try?
When talking about losing weight in Taiwan 30 years ago, everyone would definitely want to use boiled meals
When it came to losing weight five years ago, everyone might think of using a low-sugar diet. When it came to losing weight in the past two or three years, everyone might directly think of the ketogenic diet.
I lost 30kg in 3 months on a low-sugar diet myself for the first time, so I used to believe that a low-sugar diet was the best way to lose weight
But after my long-term understanding of weight loss-related research, genetic cognition, and observation of students, there is no diet that is most suitable for everyone! Although it is said that high-carbohydrate foods will most stimulate insulin secretion, which in turn promotes the storage of nutrients into fat, some people are naturally good at metabolizing carbohydrates, so they can still be healthy and strong after eating high-carbohydrate throughout their lives.
For example, this study compared the responses of people with high and low insulin sensitivity to high- and low-carb diets.
Research source: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1038/oby.2005.79
The study concluded:
-For people with high insulin sensitivity, eating high-carb and low-fat to lose weight is very helpful
-However, people who are insulin insensitive use a high-carb low-fat diet to lose fat, but the weight loss effect is not so good.
But on the contrary, studies have also shown that people with low insulin sensitivity have a very good weight loss effect on a low-carb high-fat diet, which shows that improving insulin is very important for weight loss, and it also shows that people with insulin insensitivity are more suitable
Lose weight with a high-carb diet.
So if you have been obese for a long time, you know that you eat carbohydrates easily, or you know that you have diabetes in your family and want to lose fat, then I would suggest that you can start by reducing carbohydrates, which is what we call low carb diet!
The Negative Impact of E-Levy on Mobile Banking.
DEFINITION OF TERMS
Mobile Banking is a service provided by a bank or other financial institution that allows its customers to conduct financial transactions remotely using a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet.
Electronic Transaction Levy or “E-Levy” is a tax applied on transactions made on electronic or digital platforms.
ADVANTAGES OF MOBILE BANKING
Mobile banking offers numerous benefits such as ease of transaction, convenience, time-saving, managing your finances, and budgeting. Some advantages of Mobile Banking in remote areas include:
Financial Inclusion — mobile banking offers convenient and easy banking services to people in remote areas. Thus, it allows banking on the go and offers all benefits of a banking system to rural areas without the presence of a financial institution.
Accessing the bank 24/7 — Mobile banking provides ubiquitous banking services without the need to visit the bank to have access to services. This offers time to benefit and ease of transacting at a distance.
Cost-benefit — Mobile banking saves the banks the cost of building physical infrastructures (branches) and maintaining branches and staff. Also, reduced costs on the customer side since the burden of visiting the bank for services is eliminated.
Improving resilience in the face of poverty — Mobile money acts as both a savings vehicle and a means of transferring funds during times of economic or environmental shocks.
Strengthening the formal economy — For many micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), opening a mobile money account can facilitate access to formal financial services. Mobile money is well placed to address the issue of informality that blights many developing economies and hampers domestic resource mobilization efforts. Mobile Money enables ease of transacting, thus increasing business profits for MSMEs.
Facilitating economic growth — Mobile money has been shown to contribute to economic growth by increasing both productivity and per capita incomes
DISADVANTAGES OF E-LEVY ON MOBILE BANKING
The design of mobile money taxation policy appears to be the antithesis of a well-designed tax system. The disadvantages include:
Inequity — Mobile money taxes as currently structured to create inequity in the tax system. As the tax is mostly borne by the poor and users of the services are subject to additional taxation (unlike bank or cash transactions), the principles of both horizontal and vertical equity in the tax system are contravened.
Uncertainty -. Uncertainty and lack of transparency over taxation systems can have a direct impact on the operations of the tax authority, increasing enforcement costs, as well as discouraging investment.
Inconvenience — The administration of mobile money transaction taxes creates an inconvenience for MMPs who must calculate and collect the tax on the revenue authority’s behalf. There is an additional inconvenience for users of the service for whom remote digital transactions become more expensive or out of reach if they revert back to cash.
Inefficiency — Badly designed mobile money taxes have been shown to have a distortionary impact on demand for mobile money services. This in turn has had negative impacts on overall tax takes, as well as impacting the attainment of national economic and development goals.
EFFECT OF MOBILE BANKING — CASE STUDIES
The decision to impose taxes on mobile bank transactions will trigger so many problems.
Ghana — According to The Fourth Estate Ghana; Although the government projects a 24% decline in transactions when the levy is finally implemented, preliminary findings published by the bank of Ghana indicate the value of mobile money transactions had dropped by 3.2 billion in December 2021, less than 2 months after the proposal to introduce E-levy.
Uganda — An e-levy of 1% introduced in 2018 has led to an overall drop in the person-to-person transaction by more than 50%, and a 24% drop in industry transactions within the same year the tax was introduced according to a report by Global system for mobile communication (GSMA).
Congo — An e-levy of 1% was introduced in 2019. The government had to reverse the tax on cash outs only due to negative results of the levy on Mobile money users such as a decline in mobile money agents (unemployment) and high-value withdrawals by people.
Other countries include Benin (5%) and Cameroun (0.2%). In all these countries, the e-levy has imposed a negative effect on the economy and people. If we want to ensure the financial inclusion of people in rural areas, we need to ensure that we encourage mobile banking by withdrawing the e-levy tax.
Reference:
https://thefourthestategh.com/2022/03/16/e-levy-this-is-what-happened-when-other-african-countries-passed-it/
Purohit, S., & Arora, R. (2021). The benefits and challenges of mobile banking at the Bottom of the pyramid. Journal of Contemporary Issues in Business and Government Vol, 27(1).
Charles G. Kpan, Jr. is an Information Technologist with over 5 years of experience in the provision of Information Technology Services and an emphasis on Web Development and Visual Branding. He’s the managing Director of CYGEC IT SOLUTIONS INC. and holds a bachelor’s Degree in Information Technology from Blue Crest University, Liberia.