Your Money Adviser: Starting to Build a Credit History

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Your Money Adviser: Mobile Banks Gaining Popularity With Young Consumers

Then she heard about GoBank, one of a new breed of mobile banking services aiming at fee-averse customers, especially 20-somethings or “millennials,” accustomed to doing everything on their smartphones. She now uses it as her sole bank.

Ms. Goetze is a fan of a GoBank feature that lets her check her balance quickly on her phone, without having to log in to her account. “I love, love, love it!” she said. She doesn’t pay any monthly fee; GoBank lets users choose their fee (from zero to $9 a month), and right now she opts to pay nothing. But she said she may start paying $1 a month, now that she has been using GoBank for a while and likes it. She estimates she would have had to pay about $12 a month with a traditional account.

Old-fashioned banks, of course, also offer mobile banking apps, and branchless banks aren’t new either. But the upstarts, which include Simple and Moven, especially appeal to younger customers and others on a tight budget because they shun most fees, including dreaded overdraft fees, and have no minimum balance requirements. Each differs slightly in their offerings, but all aim to simplify payments and help users closely track their spending. They’re meant to be used when customers are on the fly, rather than sitting down at a computer.

The new alternatives work with traditional banks to hold deposits, so the money in your account is F.D.I.C.-insured. GoBank is the mobile banking arm of the Green Dot Corporation, which markets reloadable prepaid debit cards and owns Green Dot Bank, which holds the funds deposited via GoBank. Simple and Moven are in effect banking services, rather than banks, but they work with traditional banks to handle the actual banking functions behind their mobile apps. Simple’s deposits are held at Bancorp Bank, based in Delaware (a spokeswoman said Simple may also partner with other banks in the future as it grows), while Moven’s are held at CBW Bank, which is based in Kansas. But customers access the service through their mobile apps or websites.

The new mobile banks are gaining in popularity. Simple became available to the public in July 2012 and now has about 80,000 customers, said a spokeswoman, Krista Berlincourt. Simple currently requires users to email a request for an invitation to join, before allowing them to register. The approach acts as a fraud deterrent and also lets the company ramp up its systems to meet demand, she said.

Moven is still in its testing phase, and also asks customers to submit an invitation, said Alex Sion, Moven’s president; he says the service has “a couple of thousand” customers. One of its distinctions is that it offers users the option to make payments directly from their phone, by tapping the phone on a payment terminal, he said.

The new mobile models are evolving, but show promise by focusing on what the customer wants to do, rather than relying on banking terms that most millennials don’t care about, said Jennifer Tescher, chief executive of the Center for Financial Services Innovation. Simple’s users, for instance, can see their “safe to spend” balance, which takes into account pending bills. Young people like to have quick access to check their balances, she said, because they have been hard hit by the slow economy and are on tight budgets. “They care about having a terrific user experience that’s easy to use and understand, and works in real time,” she said.

Jim Bruene, founder of the Netbanker blog, said the new mobile banks had a “hip” aura that appeals to young people. GoBank, for instance, offers a budgeting tool called Fortune Teller. Users can ask whether a purchase for a certain amount is a good idea, and the system will respond based on your spending — usually with a mildly sarcastic remark (“Think. When did you last see your mind?”).

Email: yourmoneyadviser@nytimes.com

Your Money Adviser: Annual Enrollment for Medicare Opens

Traditional Medicare covers hospital stays and outpatient visits on a fee-for-service basis, and you don’t need to do anything if you’re satisfied with your coverage. But if you buy an additional Medicare Part D prescription drug plan, or if you have chosen coverage through a private Medicare Advantage managed care plan, it’s wise to pay close attention, because details can change significantly from year to year. Premiums may go up, drugs may be dropped from the menu of covered medicines and doctors you like to visit may leave your network.

“The decisions you make in open enrollment can impact you for the entire year, or even longer,” said Nicole Duritz, the vice president of health education and outreach at AARP.

Medicare Advantage plans often carry low or even no premiums and most include prescription drug coverage, so they’re often attractive to people on fixed incomes. They usually restrict care to a network of doctors, however. Offerings vary widely from state to state, and even within states. About 14 million people, or more than a quarter of Medicare beneficiaries, are enrolled in the plans.

The federal Department of Health and Human Services says the average Medicare Advantage premium for 2014 is expected to be $32.60 a month, up $1.64 over this year. But premiums vary and it’s possible some plans may have much larger increases. The federal government has been cutting payments for the plans to bring costs into line with those for traditional Medicare.

Fred Cicetti, a 72-year-old retiree in Lincoln Park, N.J., said he was dismayed to learn that his insurer had discontinued his no-premium Advantage plan for 2014; a plan being offered with relatively comparable coverage came with a premium of $153 per person. That meant more than $300 a month to cover himself and his wife.

By calling around, he was able to find another plan with roughly the same coverage through a different insurer, with a premium of about $70 a month. “We found a solution that works for us,” he said. “But people really have to dig.”

If you have traditional Medicare and buy a stand-alone plan for prescription drug coverage, there are more choices this year, according to an analysis from the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation. Medicare beneficiaries will, on average, be able to choose from 35 drug plans, up from 31 last year, the report found. Most plans now use “preferred” pharmacy networks, so you’ll pay more if you buy your medicine elsewhere.

Most people don’t change drug plans, even though those who do switch often save money, a separate report from the Kaiser Foundation found. “People do tend to stick with the plan they’ve selected,” said Patricia Neuman, a Medicare policy expert and one of the study’s authors.

That may be because it is time-consuming for seniors to sit down with all their medications and calculate what their costs would be under a new plan, compared with their current plan, she said. “A lot of people think the juice is not worth the squeeze,” she said.

The federal government estimates that the average monthly premium for Medicare drug coverage in 2014 will be $31.

Here are some questions about Medicare open enrollment:

¦ Will the current federal government shutdown affect Medicare open enrollment?

The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the government agency that oversees Medicare, says open enrollment won’t be delayed.

¦ Where can I review my Medicare options?

Go to the Medicare Plan Finder at Medicare.gov. (Don’t go to the new federal health care exchange created by the Affordable Care Act; that’s for people under 65 who want to shop for private insurance coverage, not for people on Medicare.)

¦ What if I’m confused about my choices?

You can call Medicare at 800-633-4227. Or if you prefer help in person, try the State Health Insurance Assistance Program, known as SHIP. A list of programs by state is available on the program ‘s Web site.

DealBook: Former C.E.O. of Willis Group Joins K.K.R. as Senior Adviser

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DealBook: Wesley Clark, Retired General, Joins Blackstone as an Adviser

Lucy Nicholson/ReutersWesley K. Clark will focus on deals in the energy sector.

Wesley K. Clark, a retired Army general and onetime supreme allied commander in Europe for NATO, has joined the Blackstone Group as a deal adviser in the energy sector.

General Clark will also serve as a director of Fisterra Energy, a company formed by Blackstone and a management team led by Pedro Barriuso, a former executive chairman of Element Power. Fisterra focuses on developing and running power projects in Latin America, Europe and the Middle East.

Lars Thunell, a former head of the World Bank‘s financing arm, will also join Blackstone as an adviser and Fisterra as a director.

General Clark is the second former Army general to join a private equity firm in as many months. Last month, David H. Petraeus, a retired four-star general and former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, was hired by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts to lead its KKR Global Institute.

Since retiring from the Army and briefly running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, General Clark has turned to business matters. He founded a consulting firm, Wesley K. Clark & Associates, that advises clients in a number of areas, including energy.

He is also a co-chairman of Growth Energy, a group representing the American ethanol industry, and a director of BNK Petroleum, an independent oil exploration company.

“Helping countries overcome their energy challenges and develop energy security is critical to economic growth and sustainable development,” General Clark said in a statement. “I am pleased to join Fisterra’s board of directors and look forward to supporting the team as they work to accomplish their goals.”

Rajan, Adviser to India, Urges Changes to Economy

But instead of drawing a rebuke from India’s often thin-skinned leaders, he got a job offer. In August, Mr. Singh, who has frequently sought Mr. Rajan’s advice, called and asked him to take a leave from his job as a professor at the University of Chicago to return to India, where he was born, to help revive the country’s flagging economy. Within weeks, he was at work as the chief economic adviser in the Finance Ministry.

Analysts say the appointment of an outspoken academic like Mr. Rajan, along with the recent push by New Delhi to reduce energy subsidies and open up retailing, insurance and aviation to foreign investment, signal that India’s policy makers appear to be serious about tackling the nation’s economic problems.

Mr. Rajan has advocated changing India’s financial system, which is dominated by state-owned banks, by among other things loosening government restrictions on foreign banks and other financial institutions. He has also been critical of the country’s crony capitalism, likening its business tycoons to Russia’s oligarchs. He has argued that India needs to build stronger, impartial agencies to make the allotment of licenses and natural resources more transparent.

And India might finally be ready to make such changes, he said in an interview in his office here.

“I believe that one of the virtues of a functioning democracy is that they prevent things from getting too bad,” he said. “When things get bad, democracy creates the space to make improvements.”

Economists say Mr. Rajan, and his boss, the recently reappointed finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, face daunting challenges in their effort to revive the slowing economy, which is expected to post growth of 5.5 percent this year, down from an average of 7.7 percent a year over the last decade. The credit rating agencies Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings have warned that they may downgrade India’s sovereign debt to junk status if it doesn’t bring its ballooning budget deficit under control.

Many of the government’s proposals, including reduced subsidies for food and fuel, are deeply unpopular. Moreover, the governing alliance, led by the Indian National Congress Party, recently lost its majority in the lower house of Parliament, which will make it hard to enact legislation.

“Most emerging market governments only carry out reforms when they have their backs to the wall,” said Ruchir Sharma, an executive at Morgan Stanley and author of the recent book “Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles.” “The government is under siege and they are reacting to that.”

Though Mr. Rajan’s current post does not carry any executive authority, his return to India has attracted attention because many policy analysts consider him to be the leading candidate to take over the top job at India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India, next year when the current governor, Duvvuri Subbarao, retires.

Mr. Rajan, 49, became famous in the economics profession for his prescience in warning about the growing risks in the financial system at a Federal Reserve conference in 2005, three years before the failure of Lehman Brothers. He argued that innovations and deregulation appeared to have made the global financial system riskier, rather than safer and more stable as many economists and top policy makers like Alan Greenspan then believed.

The son of an Indian diplomat, Mr. Rajan grew up around the world and in New Delhi, earning degrees from prestigious Indian universities before studying economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His first big policy job came when he was appointed the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund. Since 2008, he has been an external adviser to Mr. Singh, who is his highest-placed champion in India and who also asked him to lead a committee to propose changes to the country’s financial system.

Jim Yardley contributed reporting.