Jul. 12, 2010 – Finance Digest

FTC again delays enforcement of Red Flags Rule

At the request of several members of Congress, the Federal Trade Commission is further delaying enforcement of the “Red Flags” Rule through Dec. 31, according to a release from the FTC.
During that time, Congress will consider legislation that would affect the scope of entities covered by the rule.
The announcement does not affect other federal agencies’ enforcement of the original Nov. 1, 2008, deadline for institutions subject to their oversight to be in compliance.
“Congress needs to fix the unintended consequences of the legislation establishing the Red Flags Rule — and to fix this problem quickly,”?FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said in the release. “We appreciate the efforts of Congressmen Barney Frank and John Adler for getting a clarifying measure passed in the House, and hope action in the Senate will be swift.
“As an agency we’re charged with enforcing the law, and endless extensions delay enforcement.”
The rule was developed under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, in which Congress directed the FTC and other agencies to develop regulations requiring creditors and financial institutions to address the risk of identity theft.
The resulting Red Flags Rule requires all such entities that have covered accounts to develop and implement written identity theft prevention programs to help identify, detect and respond to patterns, practices or specific activities — known as “red flags” — that could indicate identity theft.
The rule became effective on Jan. 1, 2008, with full compliance for all covered entities originally required by Nov. 1, 2008. Since then, the commission has issued several delays.
Most recently, the commission announced in October 2009 that at the request of certain members of Congress it was delaying enforcement of the rule until June 1, to allow Congress time to finalize legislation that would limit the scope of business covered by the rule.

VisionMenu provides 30 F&I?training tutorials

VisionMenu Inc., a provider of software selling solutions to dealers, has released 30 training tutorials. These tutorials enhance the already featured product training tutorials for VisionMenu and VisionMenu Plus. They are a standard enhancement at no additional charge to the dealer.
The new training includes Finance and Cash Conversions, the F&I sales process, how to get more paper brought from lenders, and menu selling, including closing with an electronic menu.
“VisionMenu PRO was designed with the F&I sales process in mind,” said Ron Martin, president of VisionMenu. “It only made sense to provide our customers with the tools they need to sell more products and get more paper bought.
“We believe that a well-trained F&I person is how you get results in the F&I office, not an electronic video presentation.”

ADP sees slight revenue growth in its third quarter

ADP, parent company of ADP?Lightspeed, reported slightly improved revenue from its third quarter.
The company had 3 percent growth in sales to $2.4 billion for its quarter that ended March 31.?The company noted, however, that revenues benefited nearly 2 percent from favorable foreign exchange.
“I am encouraged by the continued improvement in our key business metrics as the difficult economic landscape appears to have stabilized,”?Gary Butler, ADP’s president and CEO, said in a press release. “We continue to invest in ADP’s future, which will pressure near-term earnings growth. However, we are focused and doing the right things for the business, and I remain positive on ADP’s longer-term outlook.”
ADP’s net earnings from continuing operations decreased slightly compared with a year ago because of a higher effective tax rate in the current quarter.
The company’s Dealer Services revenues declined 3 percent, 4 percent organically, for the quarter. The impact of dealership closings, lower transactional revenues and lower international software license fee revenues contributed to the decline, the company said.
ADP?also noted it is expecting its full-year revenues to finish near last year’s revenues.

Easton-Bell Sports reports rise in quarterly revenue

Easton-Bell Sports Inc., a manufacturer and distributor of helmets and other accessories, reported slightly decreased sales for its powersports segment.
“Overall our results were in line with expectations as we generated increased top-line sales in the quarter while improving our operating margins, which resulted in profit growth at a higher rate than sales,” Paul Harrington, Easton-Bell’s CEO, said in a press release.
Easton-Bell’s “Action Sports” segment consists of products for powersports, snowsports, cycling and other fitness-related activities. This segment reported an 8.3 percent decline in sales at the end of its recently reported quarter, which ended in April. Total sales for this segment were more than $74 million.
The company said the segment’s sales decrease was primarily due to lower sales of high price-point cycling helmets and accessories. Those were partially offset by higher sales of low price-point cycling helmets and snowsports helmets.
The company’s other segment, which consists of football, baseball and other team sport products, increased its sales by 8 percent. PSb