Best Second Mortgage Rate
Business briefs: USAA bank earns top customer rating
San Antonio-based USAA Federal Savings Bank achieved the top customer satisfaction ranking in the 2006 J.D. Power and Associates study of mortgage service providers.
USAA Federal achieved a satisfaction index score of 897 on a 1,000-point scale, 36 points better than the second-place finisher, BB&T Corp. of North Carolina, and 87 points better than the industry average.
The study measures customer attitudes in four areas — account administration, billing, payments and the process of contacting the mortgage company. The 2006 Primary Mortgage Servicer Study received comments from 12,799 homeowners.
St. Mary's lauded for business school
The Bill Greehey School of Business at St. Mary's University has been rated an outstanding business school by The Princeton Review and will be listed among the best in the nation this fall.
Related Best Second Mortgage Rate links
Managing the divide between east and west may lead RBA in a new direction
IMPLICIT in the Reserve Bank's decision to lift official interest rates, for the second time in four months, is an admission of failure. It would, however, be a hard taskmaster who condemned the Reserve Bank for not realising earlier that inflationary pressures in the economy were surging.
"Overall, the board's assessment, based on the gradual increase in underlying inflation this year, and the wider background of above-average global growth and strong domestic demand, was that underlying inflation in the period ahead was likely to exceed previous forecasts," the Reserve Bank said.
The bank has under-estimated the resilience of domestic demand and the impacts of the China-inspired commodity boom and the parallel increase in oil prices on inflation. Its last increase, in May, had no discernible effect on consumer behaviour.