As revealed in the survey result of “Overall Operation of Payment System 2012” released by the central bank of China , by the end of 2012, Chinese people hold 2.64 bank cards and 0.25 credit cards per capita. Credit card has become a product used frequently by common people in their daily life. Nevertheless, among a great variety of credit card products, do we really know their functions and features and the knacks to use them? Only when we learn these knacks and use appropriate credit cards in a proper way, we can make them a good help to our life.
As introduced by the officers of the Credit Card Center of Industrial Bank (IB), credit cards can become an “edge tool for wealth management” on the hands of cardholders in addition to the convenient consumption and payment functions. For instance, a customer may enjoy the interest-free repayment period up to 50 days with IB credit card, and he or she doesn't need to pay cash immediately for consumption by using IB credit card. In turn, such funds can be used for short-term wealth management or circulation of funds. This can effectively improve the flexibility of capital flow and increase interest incomes.
Miss Li, a white collar liking internet shopping, has become a skilled cardholder in employing the knacks of “interest-free repayment period” for credit card. She said: “I have the credit cards of three or four banks, and I will use the one whose statement date has just passed for payment if possible. Thus, I can enjoy the longest interest-free repayment period!”
In addition, Miss Li also pay great attention to the preferential policies of credit cards issued by different banks. That “rewarded points could be used as cash” is a new surprise to her. The story goes as follows. As Miss Li has applied an IB-Taobao.com co-branded credit card, not only could she receive rewarded points in consumption by fast payment at Taobao.com, but also deduct cash with such points at the proportion of 500 points for RMB 1. A few days ago, she offset RMB 40 with 20,000 points when shopping. “The gifts exchanged with points may not be rightly what I want, but it is really convenient and cost-efficient to deduct cash with points in this way. When shopping at Taobao.com in the future, I will use the card.”
Apart from “interest-free repayment period” and card-swiping points, IB credit card has also offered a range of rewarding activities such as card-swiping discount and shopping promotion, and provided value-added services, including airport VIP service and unlimited play of golf, to high-end credit card customers. The cardholders really enjoy “care-free and cost-effective services”.
While credit cards provide convenience and substantial benefits, the security in using cards also becomes a focus of attention among cardholders.
Born in 1990s, Miss Chen is a fashion icon, usually loving overseas shopping over the internet. As how to avoid risks of internet shopping, her experience is to choose normal internet shopping channels and keep our own credit card information properly, protecting the password of credit card from disclosure in particular. “The security service of IB is very considerate. Once, I was doing overseas internet shopping with my IB credit card, and a customer service operator of IB called me to check whether the operation was done by myself within less than one minute, and give instructions to me regarding the correct payment method with foreign currency.”
People often doing overseas internet shopping or shopping aboard know that they must be prudent in making repayment with foreign currency. Yet, it is not a problem for Miss Chen as she has activated the function of repayment with automatically purchased foreign exchange for IB debit card. With the binding automatic repayment, the RMB in her debit card can be used to purchase foreign exchange to repay her debt in foreign currency. Upon the due repayment date, the bank will purchase foreign exchange at the exchange rate on that day to repay the debt of her credit card in foreign currency. “As long as the amount of RMB is enough in my debit card, I will not bother about the statement in foreign currency any more. It is really suitable for a lazybones like me.”
Credit cards have brought great convenience to our life. We should have an in-depth understanding to credit cards and use them in a proper way, and then they will really become a good help to our consumption and wealth management.