Plastic Money

We are living in mobile age where all our pockets are occupied by so many gadgets and cards. While pockets are asking for a space for making you comfortable, carrying cash can really depress the pockets. And fortunately we have lot of digital alternatives to get rid of cash and make your pocket lighter.

What is Plastic Money ?

Plastic money is nothing but the money you hold in your plastic cards. So you have a lot of cards (Credit, Debit etc.) in your wallet nowadays and you use them whenever you want to pay your bills or purchase anything new. Most of the professionals are using plastic cards for all the transactions they are making. Using plastic money can be 10 times safer than cash money.

How to use plastic money ?

Using plastic money is not a rocket science. Anyone with a plastic card (Debit, Credit etc.) can make purchases and pay bills. One can also withdraw money from ATMs using their cards. Plastic cards can also be swiped for paying at Malls, Shops, and other places.

How to use the card at ATM ?

ATM is abbreviated as ‘Automated Teller Machine’. This is as simple as getting a metro ticket from ATVM (Automated Ticket Vending Machine). You just have to use your ATM card in a suitable ATM machine and by choosing the right options, you can withdraw money.

Type of Plastic Money ?

There are multiple varieties of plastic money which one can have. Below are varieties of plastic money.

1. Credit Card
2. Debit Card
3. Digital Wallet / Virtual Card
4. Shopping Card
5. Transport Card

These cards are widely used for money exchanges. Each variety of different cards which can make you cashless, comes under plastic money. Although there are certain pros and cons of using different cards. Let’s discuss them.

Credit Card Vs Debit Card

Credit card has lot of advantages over debit card but it can be dangerous sometimes if not used properly.

With credit card, you can make transactions even more than your bank account balance. Actually the credit card comes with a daily transaction limit up to which you can make any number of transactions irrespective of the balance in your bank account. Also the credit card has a total limit beyond which you can not make transactions. The credit card is just like a free bank loan for a short time (mostly a month/ a quarter). There is a billing cycle with every credit card in which you have to pay the bills. Paying bills means paying the amount of money which you have already transacted in advance. If you miss to pay the bill on time, you have to pay a lot of interest to the money you are due with.

With debit card, you can make transactions only when you have sufficient balance in your bank account. If you don’t have balance in your account, you can not make transactions. The biggest advantage of debit card is that you don’t have to pay any bills and thereby you save lot of mishappenings. Mishappening here means to pay interest for the money you have transacted if you forget to pay the bill on time.

With credit card, you can not transact cash money from ATM but with debit card you can transact cash money.

Credit card offers you good limits for daily transactions but the debit card does not. Many international payment gateways offer credit cards as payment mode but not the debit card.

Digital Wallet and Virtual Card

A digital wallet is just like an online bank account with smaller limits. This wallet can not be used for transacting cash money. This wallet will help you to make smaller payments to vendors/friends. Every time you exhaust the money in your digital wallet, you have to recharge it with your credit/debit card.

Virtual card is a debit card offered virtually by wallet vendors. Virtual card will give you a debit card number, expiry date and CVV so that you can use it for online shopping.

Shopping Card and Transport Card

Shopping card is a card which is offered to the customers for special offers so that customers can visit a particular store frequently. So if you visit a store/mall frequently then they may offer you a card which will hold some points for every purchase that you make. Once you have a lot of points in your card, you can use them to purchase an item from that store.

Transport card is a card which is offered by transport carriers like Metro/Inter City Buses. So you can purchase a card and get it recharged with some amount. Once you use a particular carrier, the required amount will be automatically deducted from your card.

So all these varieties of cards come under plastic money. You can make use of any card and get rid of cash transactions. I have explained various varieties of plastic money and hope you will like the post. Still, you have any doubts/suggestions, please leave them in the comment section.