I was recently in Bangladesh working with a local nonprofit organization that specializes in microcredit programs.  To demonstrate the success of their lending, they took me to meet a woman named Baby Chakma who lived in the remote southeastern hill country.

Baby had won an award from Citibank for her use of microcredit loans to successfully turn her home into a thriving farm and business.  When I visited, her small thatch hut (shown below) consisted of a storefront facing the dirt road, a room for growing mushrooms, and various small vegetable fields and cows surrounded the structure.

Still paying off your holiday debt? You're not alone. According to a recent national study, Americans across the county are still fighting the burden from their mounting credit card debt. Equifax, one of the three largest consumer credit reporting agencies in the United States, analyzed the 50 largest metropolitan statistical areas and metropolitan divisions to find out how areas cope with their credit card payments. With the average consumer credit card debt hovering around $4,000 dollars, there are many cities where residents' total debt accounts for over 17% of their total income. Even worse, there are tons of cities with debt well beyond the national average. Here are five cities that desperately need help for bad credit card debt.

In an effort to create greater transparency between customers and credit card companies, the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 (CARD) introduces consumer-friendly litigation that regulates how banks control credit card fees. Notably, the new law standardizes how a bank can increase interest rates, change introductory offers and delinquent payments.

Did you receive emails from credit card companies over the weekend that read something like the following? "Recently, we were notified of a system breach at Epsilon, a third-party vendor that provides marketing services to a number of companies. The information obtained was limited to the customer name and email address of some credit card customers. No account information or other information was compromised and therefore there is no reason to re-issue a new card."