Statistics, Facts & Such

Patricia Murphy, Editor of CHECKS AND CHECKING, reports that for goods and services over $40, American women prefer to write checks over any other means of payment. After checks the 500 women surveyed used cash, then credit cards, and their last choice was debit cards.

On July 1 regulators boosted insurance premiums from 19.5 cents per $100 to 23 cents - a change expected to net the insurance fund $10 billion a year.

According to Business Week, an average 12% of stocks of the 1,000 largest U.S. Companies ($150 billion worth) is held by the employees who work for those companies.

The U.S. Travel & Tourism Administration says the fastest-growing U.S. tourist destination for foreign tourists in the United States is not New York City, or Miami, or California-it is Kansas! Watch out for those traveler's checks in Wichita, Salina, Hayes, Parsons and Dodge City!

Carpal tunnel syndrome (painful pinched nerve that causes numbness or pins and needles in fingers) repair is now the second most frequently done operation in the U.S. according to a survey of doctors completed by Technology Review in Massachusetts. One of the reasons for this, they note, is constant use of a computer keyboard at an unnatural angle. (Which includes the use of such equipment in computer centers and tellers' stations in financial institutions.)

Approximately one third of credit reports requested by individuals and supplied by credit bureaus have something missing or wrong, according to consumer and industry averages.

Federal Reserve says the average $1 bill can be folded 6,500 times before it wears out and has a life span of 18 months. A $5 bill's life cycle is 15 months; $10 is 18 months; $20 is 2 years; and a $50 bill will last 5 years. A $100 bill stays in circulation over 8 years.

Copyright © 1991 Bankers' Hotline. Originally appeared in Bankers' Hotline, Vol. 2, No. 7, 8/91