Introduction To Credit Cards

There was a time, not that long ago, when your spending power depended on the amount of cash you actually had there and then in your wallet or purse. In those days, if you wanted to go shopping you needed to make sure you had enough cash on you to pay for whatever it was you were looking to buy. If not, you needed to take yourself off to the bank, stand in a queue, cash a cheque, and then leave with the cash to buy whatever it was you needed or wanted. What’s more, if you wanted to go on an overseas trip then you either needed to make sure you took some cash with you or else you took traveller’s cheques (which, again, you most likely needed to arrange with your bank before leaving), which you then exchanged into cash at a bank or exchange.

Today things are very different. Now, if you want to go out and buy a television, you can do so, impulsively, simply by giving the store assistant your “flexible friend” – the plastic in your wallet or purse. Likewise, when you travel overseas, it is no longer necessary for you to take cash or traveller’s cheques with you, with your plastic payment card will not only let you make all the purchases you need to make, you can also make cash withdrawals from Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) with them.

For some, the world of plastic payment cards has been the modern marvel of the 21 st Century. For others, the responsibility of having a payment card – and the easy access it has given them to a line of credit – has all become too much and years of living in the wilderness of debt repayments has ensued.

Nonetheless, whether you're a Luddite that loathes payment cards or a great supporter of plastic cards, the simple fact is that plastic cards have become central to our financial lives. What’s more, they’re here to stay! Indeed, if you travel to certain parts of the world, the United States for example, you’ll soon find that plastic payment cards are the ‘preferred’ method of payment today – even over offers to pay in cash!

What does this all mean? Simply put, you can choose to ignore the world of plastic cards if you want, but if you decide to do this the time will come when you find that you’re limiting your purchasing options by doing so. If it hasn’t already happened to you, then soon enough you’ll find out that without a plastic payment card of some sort, outlets will simply not want to do business with you. A perfect example of this can be seen with the Internet: if you have recently tried to purchase something over the Internet and you don’t have a plastic payment card, then you’ll no doubt have to agree that without it, although not necessarily impossible, the purchase was infinitely more difficult.

As such, the time may well now have come for you to consider obtaining a plastic payment card to solve some of these problems. However, before you rush headlong into another set of problems and issues, take a few minutes to read this Guide to UK Credit Cards, which tries to provide you with a simple overview of:

• what credit cards are;
• how you can go about applying for one;
• how you can use your credit card; and
• some of things you need to be looking out for when using a UK credit card.

Next Article in Guide:

• What Are Credit Cards And What Type Of Cards Are Available?
  Although this section of the Guide is entitled “What Are Credit Cards And What Type Of Cards Are Available?” – a more accurate title would be “What Are Plastic Payment Cards”, as we shall take a look at an overview of all plastic payment cards.