Kad Kredit - Bahagian 1

Siapakah tidak mempunyai kad kredit atau tidak pernah mempunyai kad kredit dalam hidupnya? Jika tidak mempunyai sekarang apakah sebabnya? Jika tidak pernah mempunyai kad kredit apakah sebabnya? Adakah kita memerlukan kad kredit dalam hidup kita pada zaman ini? Untuk apakah kita memerlukan kad kredit? Adakah kad kredit akan memanfaatkan kita atau bank akan manfaatkan daripada kita dengan adanya kad kredit? Kedua-dua senario ini boleh terjadi sekiranya pihak yang mengawal kad kredit tersebut menguasai dan dapat memanipulasi kad tersebut.

Apakah langkah dalam memilih sesuatu kad kredit? Apakah kriteria yang diperlukan dalam mendapatkan sesuatu kad kredit? Kebiasaannya pengguna muda yakni graduan yang baru memulakan pekerjaan amat teruja dalam menggunakan kad kredit kerana kononnya dengan menggunakan kad kredit ini, gaya penampilan akan menonjol apabila pergi membeli-belah atau ke restoran-restoran eksklusif. Tanpa disedari kita makin menjeratkan diri dalam perangkap hutang tanpa henti sekiranya niat kita tidak betul sewaktu mendapatkan kad kredit. Apakah kita perlu tahu terhadap sesuatu produk kad kredit sebelum kita memohon kad tersebut? Perkara yang paling asas adalah yuran tahunan yakni anda terpaksa keluarkan duit sendiri untuk membayar servis penggunaan kad kredit ini. Mungkin ramai yang akan tanya mengenai kad kredit yang tidak mengenakan yuran tahunan dan mungkin tidak percaya sekiranya menyatakan bahawa tiada yuran tahunan untuk sesuatu kad kredit itu.

Bagaimanakah kita boleh mengetahui kad kredit terbaik untuk kita? Nantikan artikel akan datang mengenai kriteria pemilihan kad kredit.

Credit Card - Part 2 (Balance Transfer)

It is almost half a year I wrote about credit card whether benefiting or harming the owner. Again as explained previously in earlier post about how a knife acts upon it's functionality, we must fully aware of the impacts.

Any of you heard of BT? Never heard this acronym? Hmmmm, how about "Balance Transfer"? Never heard but thinking have read somewhere in newspaper? Great! At least have sensed about it. Now worries for newbies about this jargon because this is not really high linguistic jargon. This is very simple terminology by it's definition where the remaining or full balance from somewhere will be transferred to somewhere else. Where exactly this somewhere? Any idea? Back to the title of this post, from credit card A to credit card B. Why exactly do they have this package in banking business? Do I care? Not really, I'm not even bother why they introduce because this is part of their products and they are free to do so. So, as a consumer or customer we must able to benefit whatever products they introduce into the market.

So, when can we use this BT? There are some criteria normally imposed by bank via this BT program where we may only can transfer certain amount as a minimum amount. First, we may utilize this BT program if we're stuck with cash of any amount to be paid to original bank of credit card A and to reduce the compounding interest. If this is the case, we may not really worry about the rate will be imposed by bank issuing credit card B because the rate will be much much lower than compounding interest from paying only minimum amount. Most of the banks normally have number of choices to choose on the BT plan; 3-months, 6-months, 9-months, 12-months, etc. The rate also may differ among the plan. Hence, choose wisely so that we can benefit at maximum level.

Other than previous scenario, we may have amount to be paid to bank of credit card A but we may want to invest that amount in some alternatives. In this case, any rate imposed by banks are not recommended because we'll be losing our money, unless our investment can give much higher return than rate being imposed by the bank. Let us assume for the worst case where our return not much and lower than any rate offered by bank and what would be the scenario we can consider? In this case try to get whichever plan gives 0% rate and this plan usually very limited and very occasional basis. 

So, we as a consumer or customer always right and try to utilize the maximum possible so that we benefit whatever products being promoted by banks. Banks may have hundreds of strategies to create profit, similarly we create hundreds of strategies to benefit from their own products.