The Great Indian Credit Card Delusion

Credit Cards Didn't Make Indians Rich — They Made Them Feel Rich (Until the Bill Arrived)

A cautionary tale of plastic money, airport lounge access, and the cruel reality of billing cycles

There's a peculiar moment in every Indian's financial journey when a small piece of embossed plastic arrives in the mail, and suddenly, life feels full of possibilities. Not actual possibilities, mind you, but the illusion of possibilities, which, let's be honest, is far more intoxicating.

Credit cards entered the Indian market like a Bollywood hero making a slow-motion entry, complete with background music that whispered seductively: "You deserve this." And we believed it. Boy, did we believe it.

The Seduction Phase: When Plastic Feels Like Gold

Remember the first time you held your credit card? That moment when you felt like you'd joined an exclusive club, one where the bouncer was a piece of plastic and the membership fee was your future self's problem? The card came with promises: cashback, reward points, complimentary airport lounge access (because obviously, we were all going to start flying business class every month), and something called "lifestyle benefits" that nobody could quite define but everyone wanted.

Indians, being the aspirational creatures we are, didn't just get one credit card. Oh no. We collected them like Tazo cards from Lay's packets in the 2000s. One for groceries, one for fuel, one for dining, one for travel, and one "premium" card that we kept in our wallet just to flash at dinner parties. Never mind that the annual fee on that premium card could feed a family for a week.

"The credit limit isn't what you can afford to spend. It's what the bank thinks you can afford to pay back. There's a difference, and it's called 42 percent annual interest."

The Illusion of Wealth: EMI Karo, Tension Nahi Lo

Then came the real game-changer: Easy Monthly Installments. Or as I like to call it, "Death by a Thousand Small Cuts." Suddenly, that iPhone you couldn't afford wasn't unaffordable anymore. It was just twelve payments of something that felt manageable. The fact that those twelve payments added up to more than the phone's original price? Details, details.

Credit cards convinced an entire generation that owning something was the same as affording it. Want that designer bag? EMI it. Want to upgrade your TV? No cost EMI available! Want to take your family on a vacation you can't actually pay for? That's what credit cards are for, beta.

The phrase "no cost EMI" is perhaps the greatest marketing con of our generation. It's like saying "no calorie dessert" and then discovering it's made of cardboard and broken dreams. There's always a cost. The cost is just hidden in processing fees, interest rates, and the slowly dawning horror when you realize you're paying for three phones simultaneously because you've been upgrading every year.

💳 Fun Fact: The average Indian credit card holder has 2.1 cards. That's not counting the ones they've forgotten about but are still paying annual fees on.

The Airport Lounge Saga: Priority Pass to Financial Stress

Let's talk about the airport lounge obsession, because nothing says "financially responsible" quite like paying an annual fee of fifteen thousand rupees for a card just so you can eat mediocre samosas for free at the airport twice a year. We calculated the mathematics. Each samosa cost us approximately seven thousand five hundred rupees. But hey, at least we felt fancy while eating them.

The airport lounge became the ultimate status symbol. Indians would arrive at the airport four hours early, not for security clearance, but to maximize their lounge time. "Why pay for food when it's complimentary?" we'd say, conveniently ignoring that we'd already paid for it through our credit card fees. Some of us even made weekend trips to the airport just to use the lounge. That's not financial literacy, that's Stockholm syndrome.

The Reward Points Trap: Collecting Dreams, One Swipe at a Time

Reward points are the participation trophies of the financial world. You spend lakhs of rupees to collect points that can buy you a toaster you don't need or a movie ticket with seventeen terms and conditions attached. "But I'm getting cashback!" we'd declare triumphantly, having just spent fifty thousand rupees to earn back five hundred. Congratulations, you've successfully given someone a ninety-nine percent discount on your money.

We became reward points accountants, maintaining complex spreadsheets of which card gives the best returns on which category of spending. We'd drive fifteen kilometers out of our way to a specific petrol pump because it gave an extra half percent cashback. The fuel we burned getting there? That was beside the point.

"Credit cards turned us into amateur mathematicians, constantly calculating percentages and reward multipliers while completely ignoring the biggest number of all: the outstanding balance."

The Bill Arrives: Reality's Least Favorite Notification

And then, like clockwork, comes the moment of truth. The SMS notification. The email. The app alert. Your credit card bill has been generated. The number on the screen looks like a phone number. You refresh, hoping it's an error. It's not an error. That's when the feeling of wealth evaporates faster than water in a Rajasthan summer.

This is where we discovered the true innovation of credit cards: the minimum amount due. That beautiful, tempting little number that's just ten percent of your total bill. "Just pay this," the card company whispers. "Pay the rest later." What they don't mention is that "later" comes with interest rates that would make loan sharks blush.

We learned terms like "revolving credit" and "finance charges," which are fancy ways of saying "you're paying money to pay money." Indians, who haggle over ten rupees at the vegetable market, somehow found it acceptable to pay forty-two percent annual interest on their credit card debt. The same people who would walk an extra hundred meters to save five rupees on parking were now paying thousands in interest charges every month.

The Cycle of Debt: Credit Card Roulette

The really adventurous among us discovered credit card roulette, the game where you use one credit card to pay off another credit card. It's like juggling, except the balls are made of debt and they're all on fire. We'd get balance transfer offers, move debt from one card to another, feel smart about the promotional interest rate, and somehow end up owing more than we started with.

Some of us became so deep in the credit card ecosystem that we started timing our purchases based on billing cycles, using one card right after its billing date to maximize the interest-free period. We weren't shopping anymore. We were executing sophisticated financial strategies that would have impressed Warren Buffett, if Warren Buffett's strategy was to owe money to as many banks as possible simultaneously.

📊 Reality Check: If you pay only the minimum due on a one lakh rupee credit card bill at 42% interest, you'll end up paying over three lakhs and it'll take more than 20 years to clear the debt. That handbag suddenly looks less fashionable.

The Wake-Up Call: When the Plastic Melts

The truth is, credit cards didn't make Indians rich. They made us feel rich while simultaneously making us poorer. They gave us access to a lifestyle we couldn't afford while convincing us that affordability was outdated thinking. Why save for something when you could have it now and pay later? Why delay gratification when instant gratification came with reward points?

The real cost wasn't just financial. It was the stress of juggling due dates, the anxiety of checking account balances, the relationship strain of hidden spending, and the slow realization that we'd been living a life we couldn't actually afford. The credit card companies called it "credit." We should have called it what it really was: debt with benefits that benefit everyone except us.

The Road to Recovery: Plastic Surgery

Here's the uncomfortable truth: actual wealth is boring. It's paying your bills in full. It's saving before spending. It's saying no to things you want but don't need. It's understanding that a credit limit is not a suggestion of what you should spend, but a maximum of what you could spend in an emergency (and no, a sale is not an emergency).

The richest decision you can make with a credit card is to treat it like a debit card with benefits. Buy only what you can pay off immediately. Use it for the convenience, the protection, and yes, the reward points, but not as a way to live beyond your means. That airport lounge samosa tastes much better when you're not paying interest on it six months later.

Credit cards are tools, and like any tool, they can build or destroy depending on how you use them. The key is remembering that the person in the bank who approved your credit limit doesn't care about your financial wellbeing. They care about their targets. The card that makes you "feel rich" comes with terms and conditions that can make you actually poor.

"True wealth isn't having a high credit limit. It's not needing to use it."

So the next time that new credit card offer arrives, promising you the moon, the stars, and complimentary airport lounge access, pause. Ask yourself: do you want to feel rich temporarily, or build wealth permanently? Because in the end, the bill always arrives, and unlike the promises, it's one thing that never disappoints.