Sandra Bullock is proving to be one generous actress.

The Oscar winner donated $1 million to the American Red Cross this week to aid earthquake and tsunami victims in Japan, the charity told CNN on Thursday. This is the largest celebrity donation to the Red Cross since the disaster, although the charity has received other anonymous donations, it reports.

Visa just announced the ability for U.S. Visa card holders to send and receive funds from other cardholders anywhere in the world. The system, which will hit later in 2011, will greatly increase the scope of person-to-person digital payments globally.

Visa says it’s mplementing the personal-payments protocol throughout its systems in the U.S., which means that at some point soon anyone in the U.S. holding a Visa debit or credit card will be able to send money to anyone else who owns a Visa card anywhere (though if you owe money to someone with a Mastercard, or just want it sent to their bank account, you’re out of luck). It’s a breakthrough, Visa notes, that extends the services Visa offers from the point of sale into the ephemeral digital space and lets consumers “pay one another.”

The way it works is pretty simple: If your bank supports the transaction (and Visa’s careful to note this does only apply to “participating financial institutions”), then when you arrange to make a personal payment to someone else from your account, using their 16-digit Visa card number instead of their bank-account number. An email address or phone number will work, too, assuming the client has linked these details to the banks. Visa thinks “this makes sending money to a niece for her birthday or to a son in college simpler, faster, and more convenient than before.” Nothing says “I love you” like cash money.

The new service was made possible by a number of moves Visa’s made, including tweaks to its global payments network VisaNet and “strategic product agreements” with CashEdge Inc. and Fiserv, Inc. which are two of the “leading providers of electronic person-to-person payment” services.

Eight years ago, at age 99, Leonard McCracken failed an eye test for renewing his driver’s license. He put his Lincoln Continental up for sale and got $1,600. “I sold it in three days — I got a good price. I love to haggle,” he says.

McCracken, who lives in Florida, has been living in retirement since about 1969, when he left a position as a salesman with a now-defunct steel company in Ohio. Since then, he’s been living on savings, Social Security and a lifetime annuity that he purchased before he retired. He has never had a pension. At 107, after living in retirement for 41 years, he’s still paying the bills and getting by on his own resources.

“Dad never made more than $10,000 a year in his life,” says his son Bob, a 73-year-old retired GE aircraft engineer.

So how does a guy with a modest income manage all of this? McCracken points to a half-dozen basic principles that have gotten him through life and continue to serve him well.

Thrift
In his whole life, McCracken says, he has only owned two new cars. The rest of the time he bought used. He still shops at the thrift store. And he remembers vividly the time that his wife was holding a garage sale and left him in charge. When she returned, he had sold the living room sofa for $100. “I had a very understanding, frugal wife (Dorothy, who died in 2002 at 95 after 75 years of marriage). We gave up a lot of things that other people were buying in order to break even.”

Real Estate Investments
McCracken bought and sold 35 houses in his life, including five that he built himself. His son, Bob McCracken, says his parents “always invested in a nice house and that has helped my dad. He is living off the equity in the last home he and my mother owned.”

The elder McCracken agreed that buying and selling real estate was a smart move for him. “We didn’t make a lot of money in every case,” he says. “But we made something and that helped. Real Estate is bad now, but it will come back,” he says. “And people who buy now, will make a lot of money.”

Use Debt Well
During the Great Depression, McCracken worked for a bank. He watched people lose their shirts and learned from it. Throughout his life, he borrowed when he had to, but he borrowed as little as possible, he says, and he paid it back as quickly as he could.

Work Even When Jobs Are Hard to Find
McCracken was unemployed about 45 years ago after his previous employer went bankrupt. He had to take a job driving a truck that paid $5 per day. It was a low point in his life, but between that and a commission sales job that he took at night, he and his family muddled through until he got back on his feet.

Save and Invest Conservatively
All of McCracken’s money is in CDs and bonds. He’s always avoided the stock market, even when people who purported to know more than he advised him differently. “When the economy tanked, he made a lot of us look real silly,” Bob McCracken says.

Stay Healthy
McCracken has hung onto his health and his wits and has had no major medical bills at all throughout his entire life. It has only been in the last year that he’s needed a little assistance. And even then, he doesn’t need much, his son says.

No. 1: Enjoy What You Are Doing.
Because starting a business is a huge amount of hard work, requiring a great deal of time, you had better enjoy it. I set out to create something I enjoyed that would pay the bills. There was no great plan or strategy. The name itself was thought up on the hoof. One night some friends and I were chatting over a few drinks and decided to call our group Virgin, as we were all new to business. For me, building a business is all about doing something to be proud of, bringing talented people together and creating something that’s going to make a real difference to other people’s lives.

A businesswoman or a businessman is not unlike an artist. What you have when you start a company is a blank canvas; you have to fill it. Just as a good artist has to get every single detail right on that canvas, a businessman or businesswoman has to get every single little thing right when first setting up in business in order to succeed. However, unlike a work of art, the business is never finished. It constantly evolves.

If a businessperson sets out to make a real difference to other people’s lives, and achieves that, he or she will be able to pay the bills and have a successful business to boot.

No. 2: Create Something That Stands Out.
Whether you have a product, a service or a brand, it is not easy to start a company and to survive and thrive in the modern world. In fact, you’ve got to do something radically different to make a mark today.

Look at the most successful businesses of the past 20 years. Microsoft, Google or Apple, for example, shook up a sector by doing something that hadn’t ever been done and by continually innovating. They are now among the dominant forces.

No. 3: Create Something That Everybody Who Works for You is Really Proud of.
Businesses generally consist of a group of people, and they are your biggest assets.

No. 4: Be a Good Leader.
As a leader you have to be a really good listener. No one has a monopoly on good ideas or good advice. Get out there, listen to people, draw people out and learn from them. As a leader you’ve also got to be extremely good at praising people. Never openly criticize people; never lose your temper, and always lavish praise on your colleagues for a job well done. People flourish if they’re praised. Usually they don’t need to be told when they’ve done wrong because most of the time they know it. So see if there’s another job within the company that suits them better. On most occasions you’ll find something for every single kind of personality.

No. 5: Be Visible.
A good leader does not get stuck behind a desk. I get out and about, meeting people. I always have a notebook in my back pocket to jot down questions, concerns or good ideas. I try to make sure that we appoint managing directors who have the same philosophy. When you’re building a business from scratch, the key word for many years is “survival.” It’s tough to survive. Literally, your full concentration has to be on surviving. Obviously, if you don’t survive, just remember that most businesses fail and the best lessons are usually learned from failure. You must not get too dispirited. Just get back up and try again.

TD Bank really is now one of the greenest banks in the U.S. The company have just announced that it’s to achieve carbon neutrality, which means the bank’s energy use is offset by various energy-saving practices. TD Bank also plans to open up a LEED Platinum prototype bank later this spring in Queens Village, New York and expects to open 5 to 10 green prototype stores by the end of 2010.

First off, should we really trust the banks?  We feel the answer is no. Citi is engineering the bank of the future — to be like a convenience store. In a retail space, there are three ways to turn customers on: attraction (enticing decor), engagement (“stay awhile” perks), and connection (the hard sell). “The problem with banks,” says Chris Kay, a former Target exec who’s now managing director of growth ventures at Citi, “is that they’re skipping the first two and moving straight to the third.” Here are the five key things they’re shooting for;

1. Tabletop Kiosks
2. A Media Wall
3. Smart ATMs
4. Sales Wall
5. Phone-Powered Payments