Credit Card V/S Debit Card – Debate Continues

By Suparna Chakaraborthy

Monday, February 28, 2011, 15:10

At a time when ATM's were not your debit cards, credit card was the ruler of plastic money but with ATM's allowing purchases,the market of credit card if even by little has changed. This statement when I made to my friends, I got many negative starts and nobody seemed to have agreed to me. I was a credit card holder but when I got a debit card, I saw no need of it and thus, canceled my credit card, even after facing a lot of opposition. I have several others who think like me but when with friends I always end up in the debate credit card v/s debit card.

Here is the debate – credit card v/s debit card

1.Credit card is the plastic money which allows you to make payment, which is actually borrowing money from a bank or a financial institution. To this payment one promises to repay the amount with some interest back.

On the other hand, debit card is your ATM, through which if one makes a payment, money gets deducted from his account itself, with no charge.

2.The credit card use is safe in case of fraudulent activities. For example, if one is victim to a fraud of i.e you notice a excess expenditure of , then the credit card company takes the complete responsibility and undertakes the investigation, if it is reported through mail.

Whereas, in debit card use, if you notify a theft after two days, the user is held responsible for the loss and I some cases the faulty payment is also not returned back into the user account.

3.The credit card use is not for shopaholics. One tends to spend excess than what is planned as there is no direct deduction of money from the account. It payment has to be made later.

Debit card use on the other hand keeps your purchases on check. If there is no money in your account, the card cannot be swiped and thus, you need to keep track of your money all the time. The chances of excess payment is less.

4.Credit card use enables you to some rewards when you earn points on bulk payment. These rewards can be in the sense of interest deduction, materialistic rewards etc. Such rewards are missing in the case of debit cards.

5.With a credit card use one tends to spend more than one can afford, while in debit card use one can control over his expenditure.

These five points of the debate credit card v/s debit card ave always ended up without a solution. So, what do you prefer credit card use or debit card use?