Credit Card Management: Your Plastic Money need not Dictate Your Financial Future

Summary: Special attention to a few aspects when buying, spending, and using your credit cards in the long run, can help you manage your plastic money more skilfully.

Credit cards give freedom from having to carry cash everywhere. They are more than handy when faced with money needs during emergencies. Used well, credit cards can bring you benefits in the form of greater credit limit, more purchase capacity, and rewards. Negligence in managing your plastic money can however increase your debts and leave you financially unsound.

The good news is you can always improve the way you manage your credit cards:
When Buying Credit Cards…
Look at several factors when buying a credit card. Compare interest rates, credit limit, grace period, defaulting charges, additional fee, charges for usage abroad, and added benefits, offered by different service providers. Go through the product booklet in detail, to gather information about these salient aspects.

Pay special attention to APR or Annual Percentage Rate, which simply put, is the rate of interest that applies to your credit taken through the card. Service providers apply APR for different activities performed through the card, including purchases and cash advances (A cash advance is a service offered by your credit card company to withdraw up to a specified amount of cash through ATMs or financial institutions such as a banks; interest, often high rates, applies to such advances). Get to know from your service provider, the charges that you might incur as APR for different card activities.

Purchase no more than a single credit card, if possible. Managing multiple cards can be difficult. Payments and penalties on multiple cards, especially when you can manage with a single one, can turn costly on your finances.

When Spending Using Credit Cards…
Practise curbing your temptation to shop on impulse. Buy a commodity only because you need it and not because you have a credit card handy.

Be prompt with your credit card payments every month. You’ll only accrue debt by postponing payments. And, the more the debt, the more miserable your life tends to become. Moreover, being late on payments can have you staring at increased interest rates, as credit card companies are known to increase rates as a penalty for late payments.

If you have more than one credit card, prioritise payments on the basis of their interest rates; the higher the interest rates, the sooner the payment needs to be cleared off.

Make use of benefits that you stand to gain by being regular with your payments. Many credit card companies offer loyalty points that you can redeem by purchasing products; or availing deals in hotels, flight, or other.

For the Long Run…
Make note of essential details such as credit card number, validity period, and your credit card service provider’s phone numbers. These details come in handy in cases of credit card loss through theft or misplacement.

Make it a habit to go through your monthly credit card statements to find out if there are any discrepancies between print and reality. If you encounter transactions that you never conducted, report to your credit card service provider immediately. Report the same to a credit card regulatory authority in your region.

 Avoid applying for new cards to settle dues on old cards. You are most likely to be piled with debts by doing so.

Find out if credit card educational programmes such as counselling or awareness services are available in your region. Consider attending such programmes, if available. These programmes can increase your awareness about credit card management and guide you through best practices.

How do you manage your credit cards? Share your best practices here.

UAE Exchange DAD N’ I contest comes to an exciting end

The contest was a dedication from UAE Exchange to all its customers on the occasion of Father’s Day. The prizes included Sony Handycam, Sony Cybershot digicam and a Sony Portable Playstation
This Father’s Day was a new experience for Ms. MariAldz Lav Arreza, Ms. Ana Rose Estember and Mr. Mobin Agha as they won a Sony Handycam, Sony Cybershot digicam and a Sony Portable Playstation respectively in the UAE Exchange DAD N’ I contest on its Facebook fan page.

“Dad is always a child’s first hero. At UAE Exchange, we dedicated this Father’s Day to all the super dads, across the globe, who work outside their home country for the welfare of their loved ones back home.” said Mr. Gopakumar Bhargavan – Chief Marketing Officer, UAE Exchange.

“The online sphere is the space for instant connection with loved ones. Our Facebook page acts as a space for expatriates to share their happiness with all including their loved ones. These promotions on this page further add joy to their experience” added Mr. Gopakumar Bhargavan.

The contestants, who uploaded a photo, featuring themselves and their dad, were eligible for the promotion. The top three photos with the maximum ‘likes’ won prizes.UAE Exchange has earlier conducted similar online contests on its Facebook page to great success, which included Online Travel Photo contest, Money2anywhere.com refer and win contest, Facebook Fan of the Week contest etc. Offline too, UAE Exchange is known to line up value-laden promotions, round the year, for customers, from across communities.

UAE Exchange is the largest networked brand, in its class, with over 600 direct offices in 30 countries across five continents. Its strong correspondent banking relationship with over 150 global banks adds to the might. Along with the state-of-the-art technology, the remittance major has developed a wide range of services to cater to almost every financial need of the customer.

Some of its services include Xpress Money, the instant money transfer service with over 135,000 payout locations in more than 125 countries; FLASHremit, the real-time bank account credit service; Money2anywhere.com, the convenient online money transfer portal by which money can be sent to any corner of the world in just a few clicks from an internet environment anywhere; Smart Pay, the leading payroll solution;gocash, the prepaid travel card and XPay, the online bill payment service using mobile phone. UAE Exchange is also a leading agent for Western Union in the Middle East and for MoneyGram in other countries. All these services have made UAE Exchange, a true financial supermarket.

UAE Exchange strives hard to bring more value to its customers at all times. These contests in the online sphere are yet another step towards this direction.

For more information visit, www.uaeexchange.com

For more information on our latest products or to participate in this exciting contest, join us on Facebook, www.facebook.com/uaeexchange