There are many utilities of a credit card, be it easy transaction or the lure of attractive cashbacks or access to airport lounges. For Samya Mishra, 28, having a credit card was a personal as well as professional need. Her banking sector background requires her to keep a track of new offerings and different features of banking services. She has spent a good six years now working as a banking professional. “I first started using credit cards in 2013, and have been using them for almost seven years now. I was introduced to credit cards by my first employer for the purpose of corporate travels and expenses,” Mishra said.

Initially, when she started using a credit card, her spending was limited to Rs10,000-15,000. At that time she had only one credit card. Now she spends around Rs75,000 per month. Her credit card bills include mostly charges of foreign travels.

Till recently Mishra had been using three credit cards, but almost a year ago she stopped using one. Credit card usage tends to get addictive with many high-end consumers realising that their bills tend to often overtake their budgets on a monthly basis. “However, with increasing number of start-ups and fintech firms offering zero EMI consumer loans, as well as small ticket advances for large expenses at cheaper rates, the financially well-versed consumers will now limit the usage of credit cards to only essential purchases or bookings,” she explained. Also, credit cards come with an innate advantage of consumers being able to dispute a fraudulent transaction before actual payment or debit from their savings accounts.

According to her, with credit cards, international travel gets easier and in case a product is costly, one can buy that because of credit card. “Credit cards can be advantageous to the extent that any product which has a high cost can be bought with a minimal amount,” she said.