Credit card debts ballooning!

Article
CREDIT card debt hit an estimated $3.4 billion last December, the highest for that month in 20 years. More people have also sought help in settling their outstanding bills.
Going by figures from the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the number of credit cards rose 11 per cent in the last year, but rollover balances jumped more than 13 per cent.
Rollover balances, which are the unpaid amounts that are subject to interest charges, have been climbing steadily since 2006.
Also up: The proportion of card holders with bills unpaid 30 days past the due date. It rose from 1.38 per cent last July to 1.67 per cent in December.
All this has made for a busier time for Credit Counselling Singapore (CCS), a non-profit organisation which helps debtors work out instalment plans to pay off their debts.
It said it handled a third more cases in the second half of last year than in the first half - 415 counselling appointments in the second half of the year, up from 299 in the first half.
Talks on credit management organised by CCS also started drawing bigger audiences - 1,254 in the second half of the year, against 929 in the first half.

Comments
In the world today, many people are making full use of credit cards to pay off their daily expenses and leisure. The reason is that credit cards are easy and simple to use and it allows you to pay at a later date. These advantages made users spend their money extravagantly and without limits due to the fact that credit cards give them huge purchasing power. However, many have been blinded by the advantages of credit cards and have forgotten about the fact that there is a need to pay off their debts after every month.

The problem starts to arise when it is the time to pay off their debts. If unable to pay off , their credit card debts start to accumulate and cause them to be resulted in a huge debt. To avoid the debt trap, I believe that there is a need to educate these people, especially the youths. Credit card mainly causes temptation and to solve temptation is to limit oneself. Furthermore, credit users should keep track of how much they have spent on their credit card and to balance their spendings with their income. In addition, it is to use their credit card responsibly. Credit cards do provide convenience and are useful in times of emergency. But one must use the card responsibly and ensure to pay the credit card bill in full every month. By being disciplined in credit card spending and using credit responsibly, one can avoid the debt trap and becoming financially free.

Done by : HANS LIM WEI XIONG.