How to shop without Money in your bank account

 Have you watched the American movie, ‘The Confessions of a shopaholic’? In the

movie, a certain lady called Rebecca was able to buy bags, shoes and clothes continuously even after exhausting the money in her bank account.

How was she able to do this, being able to spend after she had exhausted the money in her bank accounts?

Rebecca had a CREDIT CARD.

A credit card is a special type of ATM card that allows a person to withdraw money from his bank even after the money in his accounts is finished. With this kind of cards you can withdraw money from the ATM or make payments with your cards even when you have zero Naira in your account. This credit card looks like the normal ATM cards, but it is used differently. The normal ATM cards we have are called debit cards (If you look at your normal ATM cards, you will see where DEBIT is written on it) and cannot be used to withdraw once the amount in your bank account reaches the minimum balance. But using a credit card is like collecting a loan from the bank without going to the bank. This was how the lady in the movie was able to pay for her shopping even after the money in her bank accounts had finished. She had a lot of credit cards from different banks in America. However, the lady in the movie was on a huge debt, she could not payback. Credit cards are like loans, the bank allows you some period of time (depending on agreement) to use the money before they ask you to payback. In a case where you cannot pay back the money the bank will have to come for your property in order to recover their money.

 Just recently, I saw an advert in a Nigerian journal that STANBIC IBTC bank is offering credit cards to the members of ICAN (Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria), so that they can withdraw up to 400, 000 naira (for Fellows) and 120,000 naira (for Associates) for a period of 55 days after their accounts have been emptied, the first of its kind in Nigeria.

It is a fact that Credit cards are being used in most foreign developed countries of the world, but do you think it is a welcomed development in Nigeria?