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The importance of paying credit cards on time

04 Sep 2024

Credit cards can be a source of debt troubles. Here are four important points to help you understand why it's important to pay on time and not a carry credit balance.

1. Pay attention to total monthly debt payments

Many financial advisers suggest that your total monthly debt payments — including mortgage, personal loans, student loans, and credit card payments — shouldn't add up to more than one-third of your income. If you are near that number, you might need to pay down other loans or avoid additional credit card purchases.

2. Keep a good credit score

Keeping a good credit history is very important as financial institutions check your credit report when you apply for new mortgages, loans and other credit cards.

Credit reports contain information about an individual's credit history. Information such as your current credit usage, your repayment history, public records such as litigation regarding debt recovery, bankruptcy and winding-up petitions are all included and used to calculate your credit score.

If your credit history shows you have a solid bill payment history and low non-mortgage debt, your credit score will be higher. It will give a credit provider higher confidence in approving your loan application. In contrast, a poor credit history will lead to a low credit score which may result in higher interest rates or your application may even be declined.

3. Know how much your credit costs

Credit card loan is an unsecured loan and there is nothing the bank or card issuer can collect from you if you’re late on a bill. Because of this lack of physical collateral and potentially higher risk, financial institutions often charge a higher interest rate.

In Hong Kong, Annual Percentage Rate (APR) is used to calculate credit card interest rates. It usually hovers between 30% to 40% per annum on credit card balances. Therefore, you shouldn’t underestimate the cost of credit.

Making the minimum payment on credit cards can leave you in debt for years. By paying just the minimum payment a credit card balance of HK$10,000 at the APR of 35% (a monthly rate of 2.53%) with a minimum required payment HK$300, would take more than 5 years to pay off. Your total payments would equal about HK $20,582 — which means you'd pay extra HK$10,582 for over five years.

However, by increasing the payment up to HK$977, you would clear the debt in a year and cost HK$1,720 in total interest.

4. Read your credit card statement

Missing a credit card payment deadline or forgetting the total balance amount are common reasons for delaying credit card payment. To avoid this, it’s important that you check your monthly credit card statement.

Information including payment due date, credit limit, minimum payment amount, finance charge, late charge, annualized percentage rate are stated clearly in the statement. Nowadays, an online bank account or bank mobile application allows you to check the statement easily and instantly.

 

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