R. N. Bank’s Credit Card Survey
“Credit cards are the epitome and a protagonist of globalization. As a new form of payment, they embody the effortless and instantaneous flow of money”, stated authors Akos Rona-Tas and Alya Guseva. Credit cards popularly known as plastic money have been a major tool in facilitating globalization. We chose to make a survey for a distinct profession, the teachers. Our purpose is to know if they share the same values as most of the credit card users in the market today and to know what benefits are they looking for in a credit card. We limited our survey only to teachers from well established schools and only teachers with permanent positions were considered in this survey.
In the conduct of our survey, we found out that majority of our respondent are within the age range from 30 to 55 years old. Sixty percent of our respondents were married. Ninety-eight percent of them used credit cards as major form of payment. Eight-five percent of them maintain their credit balance on current status and pay more than the minimum amount required.
The reason for all these is because teachers are expected to have high integrity. All of them maintain this value to avoid litigation which will negatively affect their job.
All of the respondents have permanent teaching jobs. As a result, most of them have received credit card offers ranging from four to six credit card offers in a year. When we inquired which credit card have they preferred, whether Visa or MasterCard, most of them responded that MasterCard was better. If they lost their card, in times of emergency, MasterCard has their special service for temporary issuance of a Mastercard. Furthermore, they stated that MasterCard would take shorter period to correct unauthorized charges from merchants as well as refunds for returned merchandise. As for the annual percentage rate (APR), both of them usually have the same offer. It would only vary based on the credit score of the applicant as well as the available promotions at the time of credit card application.
We further inquired if they prefer to use the credit card to cash in making purchases. One hundred percent of our respondents signified positively. The main reason was for convenience. Convenience means that they can purchase any time they need it. When asked about the effect of interest on purchases, most of them were transactors, meaning they pay the balance every end of the month. Thus, no interest charges. Cash was used for emergency purposes if there are problems when using the credit cards. Their only suggestion was the desire to have an increase in the credit limit. Thus, the offer of Visa for a credit limit of $5,000.00 was very enticing and 90% of them are willing to apply if this is offered to all of them. For R. N. Bank, this is something for them to consider if they can offer the teachers a credit limit of $5,000.00 with a lower interest rate within the first three to six months.
Works Cited
Engel, Kathleen C., and Patricia A. McCoy. The Subprime Virus: Reckless Credit, Regulatory Failure, and Next Steps. New York: Oxford UP, 2011.Questia. Web. 11 Dec. 2014.
Rona-Tas, Akos, and Alya Guseva. Plastic Money: Constructing Markets for Credit Cards in Eight Postcommunist Countries. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 2014. Questia. Web. 11 Dec. 2014.
