Plastic Money: Plastic money is a term that is used predominantly in reference to the hard plastic cards we use everyday in place of actual bank notes. They can come in many different forms such as cash cards, credit cards, debit cards, pre-paid cash cards and store cards. Definitions for examples of plastic money >Cash Cards - A card that will allow you to withdraw money directly from your bank via an Authorised Teller Machine (ATM) but it will not allow the holder to purchase anything directly with it. >Credit Cards - Again this card will permit the card holder to withdraw cash from an ATM, and a credit card will allow the user to purchase goods and services directly, but unlike a Cash Card the money is basically a high interest loan to the card holder, although the card holder can avoid any interest charges by paying the balance off in full each month. >Debit Cards - This type of card will directly debit money from your bank account, and can directly be used to purchase goods and services. While there is no official credit facility with debit cards per se, as it is linked to the bank account the limit is the limit of what is in the account, for instance if an overdraft facility is available then the limit will be the extent of the overdraft. >Pre-paid Cash Cards - As the name suggests the user will add credit to the card themselves, and will not exceed that amount. These are usually re-usable in that they can be topped up however some cards, usually marketed as Gift Cards are not re-usable and once the credit has been spent they are disposed of. >Store Cards - These are similar in concept to the Credit Card model, in that the idea is to purchase something in store and be billed for it at the end of the month. These cards can be charged at a very high interest rate and can are limited in the places they can be used, sometimes as far as only the store brand that issued it.
Posted on: Tue, 22 Oct 2013 15:46:40 +0000