Plastic War

With the imposition of the Government newly RM50.00 service tax, banks are now engaging in a plastic war to retain their existing card base. As it is now, it is a great challenge to solicit or sign up new customers as the market is already saturated. In an effort to keep cardholders `tied', banks are offering innovative loans, easy cash and balance transfers just to name some. Credit card new acquistion has been slowing down as we are totally aware of the RM50.00 service tax. The credit card cancellation rate has been escalating with cardholders retaining 2 cards ie one Visa and one MasterCard only.

We have to be mindful at all time of getting caught in the credit circle as it is very hard to get out of it. It is not how many credit cards we have but rather how we use the credit card.

Credit card issuers are not subsidising the RM50.00 service tax that came into effect on January 1 this year. All credit card issuers impose specific conditions upon cardholders in order to offset the amount. Among which included the following:

Rewards points
Credit Card Issuers allow the amount of RM50.00 to be offset against the reward points earned.

Minimum spending level
Another mechanism offered is a RM50.00 cash rebate and it requires cardholder to utilise/spend their card with a minimum value transaction.

Happy reading