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DCs for teenies
Mayank Gupta, 50, is a senior executive with a leading MNC bank. Till sometime back, he was grappling with a peculiar problem: Excess spending!
Mayank Gupta, 50, is a senior executive with a leading MNC bank. Till sometime back, he was grappling with a peculiar problem: Excess spending!
And, no, it was not his own personal debts, credit card spendings or, the splurge as is wont in corporate social circles. His problem was to with his 15-year-old son Amit. The young lad was spending Rs 5,000 a week and begging for more each weekend.
That’s when Gupta found helpful advice from a colleague.
Says Gupta, “My son was hooked to splurging. I didn’t know what to do. Then, one morning I happened to discuss the problem with a colleague who immediately quipped, ‘You work in a bank and should know that debit cards (DC) with limited cash in your son’s account could check his spending!’ That has been a super solution”.
Gupta is a happy man today. His son is unable to exceed his expense limit as only Rs 2,500 is put in his bank account a week depending upon what he spent the previous week. That way, his son never gets a chance to demand more money.
Most leading banks both in the private and public sector are now, targeting the college-going youth and teenagers as the fastest growing segment for debit card usage in Lucknow. A survey conducted by a private bank recently found nearly 40 per cent of the city’s youth opting for debit cards to shop at malls and eat out.
An interesting aspect with plastic money had been that parents were increasingly stressing upon debit cards for children rather than credit cards with expense limits. “The idea behind keeping debit cards had been that some credit card companies make the offer so lucrative for children that they are tempted to try several freebies at huge costs,” says Prakash Nambiar, an entrepreneur.
His take on plastic money is that credit cards are for those who are suitably employed and can afford to pay their bills upfront. Credit cards are not for children who have no idea about the hardships needed to earn that extra buck by their parents.
“I am not against plastic money. Certainly not. I am against the lure which makes children into shopaholics. Thank god booze is not available in the city on credit cards or, you could imagine the plight of parents,” says Nambiar.
Kids, on their part, say they are happy with debit cards. Apart from the flaunt value and self esteem they’re beginning to learn to budget early, says psychiatrist Mala Sinha. So, market innovation or not, banks zeroing in on teens for the debit card segment is a good idea for all with parents and children laughing all the way to the market from the bank!
