Muhammad Zafar Ismail emailed from Korangi Town: We can easily find people in our society fascinated by the glittering life-styles of the developed world. They are always ready to adopt new trends, oblivious of the fact that every product is not designed for them and requires necessary modifications to make it as per needs of the common man of the third world country. One such example is the fast growing credit card business in our country.
It is widely observed that banks are increasingly targeting the middle and lower level management of the government, semi government and private organisations for improving their credit card business, whose pays hardly allow them to elevate their standard of living.
Taking an advantage of the lack of awareness among the masses, the trained marketing representatives are sent from banks. They cleverly lure their prospective clients and convince that it is very easy to enhance their lifestyle through the credit card. These agents do not tire of counting the advantages of this plastic money by evading the risks and disadvantages very smartly even on being asked, which steers the listener on cloud nine and he begins to dream about his wishes coming true.
It has been noticed that the only salient characteristics are inscribed on the back of the application form in a user-friendly manner carrying such clear headings like Global acceptability, Zero loss liability, Small instalment plan, Cash withdrawal, Supplementary card facility, Banks rewards / Fortunes, Lowest mark up, Balance transfer and so on to simply fascinate the target customers.
Meanwhile, the terms and conditions are transcribed in an extremely unfriendly style requiring a magnifying glass to read, are delivered to the applicant well after the submission of the application form along with the credit card. The applicant puts his signature on the application form with the ignorance of the terms and conditions, completely believing in the self-interested agent.
With a shinning brand new credit card, everything is made to look within your reach, the cardholder goes crazy and exploits his resources lavishly as banks continue to offer the moon luring users with tempting deals.
There is also a new trend of getting as many credit cards as one can with accumulated debts running into hundreds of thousands causing default in repayments.
Pakistan is emerging as a perfect profit-generating place for Consumer Credit Counselling Services and Debts Councillors, who miss no opportunity to squeeze the last penny of the defaulters, bankrupted individuals and heavily indebted families.
Arguably, credit cards are the reason why many people plunge into debt. The young with lavish dreams are the most vulnerable.
Bankers are apprehensive of the situation and foreseeing a crisis in banking in the future on the account of the rising personal debts with every passing day.
This situation could cause some serious damage to the thousands of families and pose a threat to the economic condition in the long run. So, the government should make laws in this regard to curb irresponsible lending before the water is over the dam.