$500 credit card : a win-win situation for Singaporean undergraduates & banks? : an experimental study

• Main Authors: Lai, Winnie Lihui, Low, Ru Yan, Phua, Jiun Hoe
• Other Authors: Choong Chewn Seng, Edmund
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: DRNTU::Business::Finance
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/15057
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

It has been almost two years since the first credit card that targets at tertiary students has been launched in Singapore. With a credit limit of $500, these credit cards serve as a soft ground for tertiary students to learn how to manage their credit and increase the convenience in their payment modes. However, existing literature from the United States and Hong Kong show that such credit cards have increased students' debt and increased compulsive buying behavior. At the same time, banks are targeting this group of the population, especially the university undergraduates, for the long-term profit they can tap onto since these undergraduates will most likely pursue high paying jobs in the future. However, profitability is only possible if these undergraduates remain loyal to the issuing bank after they have graduated. In this study, we would like find out if there can be a win-win situation in this market for both the Singaporean undergraduates and the banks. We conducted surveys on 100 Singaporean undergraduates who possess the $500 credit cards. The results gave us insights to the possibilities of potential problems that might arise in the future for the undergraduates and whether increasing the financial literacy of the undergraduates can help alleviate these problems. We also gained insights to whether these undergraduates have the inclination towards being loyal to their first credit card and thus make this business profitable for the issuing banks. The spending habits of the undergraduates also allow us to suggest the industries in which banks should focus on when tying up benefits for cardholders, thus further increasing the appeal and profit of the cards.