Today my friend showed me a news article on a new flying coat released in New Zealand. Just for 100,000 USD, you can fly to your work everyday, escaping all the traffic. Instinctively I wondered if they sell it on credit. Imagine holding your girl friend with your left hand, punching up your right fist into the air and flying right into the air (well, after somehow managing to switch the coat on). The fact that you have a credit card bill stops you and your dreams from reaching high into the skies?? :). May be yes, atleast in this part of the world I am in.
When I opened my first Swiss bank account in January, they asked me if I wanted a credit card. "Sure", I said very positively. "OK, based on your salary, you are eligible for a credit limit of 4000 CHF. We will freeze that amount in your savings account. You can not with draw that amount. And do you also want to set me up for an automatic pay so that all of the balance gets deducted from the savings at the end of the month?". Confused, I said, "hold on. I did not even follow your first sentence. You give a credit card and freeze all the money in the limit? That makes the available balance less than in using a debit card." "That,s how credit card works, Sir".
Having stayed in the US for 6 years, I considered myself a self appointed authority on credit and wanted to enlighten him. I could not do it for want of time. I hope this blog reaches him.
When I went to the US 7 years ago, I did not have a credit card. I did not even find a need for it. Slowly as I find out how cheap it was to make purchases online, on amazon and other places, I realized I need a credit card. The only bank that was ready to offer it to me was the university bank with a 1000 USD limit. I used to use it for online purchases - books, phone cards, flight tickets .. and used to pay all the amount due at the end of the month. As more months passed by, I was too lazy to carry money all the time. And especially US was not a safe place to carry bigger denominations in your pocket. So, started using the card for purchases in supermarket. As I used to pay off the bills completely and regularly, it become a convenience card. I used to walk out of my house without a single dollar in a pocket for months together. As I used the card more, I started receiving letters from the bank saying they increased my credit limit. They started believing me. Other banks also started sending me offer letters for new credit cards. In less than 3 years of my stay in the US, I had 8 credit cards, with a total limit of about 25000 to 30000 USD. Nice. Now the problem was to safe guard the cards. Because losing them, I lose tens of thousands. So, most of them remained home.
In the last 3-4 months of my stay in the US, I was not sure of when I was leaving the country and to where. Without having any idea that I would be finishing my degree and going out of salary in 2 months, I froze my money in somekinds of investments. I had the last month to live on, the previous months bills to pay, and on top of these there were moving expenses, purchase of laptop. America, I finally decide to use the lessons I learnt. I applied for a new credit with 10,000 USD limit and no interest for one complete year. Used it fully for all the expenses above and still had some usable limit. That was the time I was prowling to see what all I can buy using a credit card. In fact, I thought I would buy the Taj Mahal if they sold it on credit. Some one asked me "why would you want to buy it?", "Why not if its available on credit?" I asked in return. The question is not about need, its about the availability of the object on credit. One of my friends was ready to sell it to me for 2,300 USD, but he said he only accepts cash. Too bad I had to pass on a genuinely good offer.
In India, the concept of credit has started lately. Since the chance of default is very likely, the rate of interest can go upto 50% a year ??? And since it's still a society where everyone is worried about what the neighbor thinks of them, these bankers do not mind making a big fuss outside your home or even seizing the object bought on credit if the timely payments are defaulted.
Coming back to the main story, I moved to Switzerland and finished up the limit on the card in a few days with the furniture I bought. That solved one problem, began many others. While I was waiting for my first salary, I was in a bad condition financially and the banks in the US in a worse condition to offer me a new credit card. So, I had to change my ways. Anyways, slowly life changed a little day after day with me starting to use the debit card for a few months. And now like most of the Swiss, I take a bagful of coins and a pocket full of bank notes to pay everything. .. That's a big change. Whether I want credit or not is different, but will still not mind arguing with the banker on the definition of credit...
Wednesday 30 July, 2008
Sunday 27 July, 2008
seven minutes from you ..
"I am pretty close to you. I should be reaching there in 7 minutes" "four minutes walk from the university .. " .. these are expressions I never heard before coming to Swiss Italian part. Being from India I picked up the local sense of Indian punctuality. Back in India, a modest error bar on the given time is on the order of 30 minutes. Most of the times the excuse for someone not showing up on time is that there will be no one else on time !! Nice all great minds think alike. Coming to the US, things were pretty punctual. Every thing is within couple of minutes from you. When I first arrived in the US, I naively believed that couple of minutes is 2 minutes. But anything upto 10 minutes can easily be considered couple of minutes. But, here in Switzerland, the land that sets the time with its precision watches, people are precise to the very minute. Of course, needless to say trains/public transport everything runs exactly on time. Such a perfect society !! In every street corner where there is a city-bus stop, there is a big clock just on the other side of the street displaying the exact time. These clocks do not have a seconds hand, but as far as I can see with my cell phone clock, all of the time are exact to the Central European Time.
In that sense the Italians are more open minded. They think more than just about themselves. You probably would have walked into one of the banks/courier services/hotel or infact any business that cares about time in other parts of the world. They have these wonderful array of clocks displaying time in N.Y., Tokyo, New Delhi .. .. I was in Rome last week and each of the bus stops in the city had a time of its own. For a moment I was even confused that they Romans were trying to make the tourists feel at home by displaying their time. Apparently these clocks are all out of order.
The trains are so much on time in Switzerland, that recently someone wrote a program to show the predicted position of the train in the country at a given point in time. And unless there is a natural disaster, which I do not wish for Switzerland, is the same as tracking the train positions in real time !!! Nice standards .. setting the time for itself and for the rest of the world .. !!
and as I understand from others, this punctuality in the Swiss Italian side is nothing compared to that in the Swiss German side !!
In that sense the Italians are more open minded. They think more than just about themselves. You probably would have walked into one of the banks/courier services/hotel or infact any business that cares about time in other parts of the world. They have these wonderful array of clocks displaying time in N.Y., Tokyo, New Delhi .. .. I was in Rome last week and each of the bus stops in the city had a time of its own. For a moment I was even confused that they Romans were trying to make the tourists feel at home by displaying their time. Apparently these clocks are all out of order.
The trains are so much on time in Switzerland, that recently someone wrote a program to show the predicted position of the train in the country at a given point in time. And unless there is a natural disaster, which I do not wish for Switzerland, is the same as tracking the train positions in real time !!! Nice standards .. setting the time for itself and for the rest of the world .. !!
and as I understand from others, this punctuality in the Swiss Italian side is nothing compared to that in the Swiss German side !!
Saturday 12 July, 2008
some boxes are more idiotic than others
"idiot box" - a perfect companion for people like me. but unfortunately I fall in the category that's too lazy to watch a TV. In the 15-20 min of cathode ray exposure I get every fortnight, I did manage to see some differences in the media here in Switzerland.
First thing is the language. Every time I punch a random number on the remote control of the TV, the first challenge is the number of seconds I need to figure out the language they are speaking. Right now it's 2 seconds for me from the time they start speaking very slowly. I do watch the news once in a while in Italian and English. There are some programs with quality, but I don't watch them, because they require some proficiency at the local languages. I somehow end up catching a glimpse of dubbed versions of flashy american programs - from Dr.House to Numbers to Gilmore girls to Desperate housewives .. and finally feel disgusted at myself.
The next thing is that the number of advertisements is limited. That's very refreshing compared to the US where there used to be a considerable amount of commercial air time breaking the continuity of the show exactly when you can not afford to miss the next few seconds of action (unless you dont mind wasting your money on a subscription to the ad-free HBO). Although I still do not know the exact pattern of the ads here, I see that there are not as many ads for cars and definitely know Switzerland is a happy country as there are not as many ads about anti-depressants as in the US. The number of tv commericals are really high in India. Imagine watching a 2:30 hour movie over 5 hours !! It's not an exaggeration if it's a very popular and recent movie. To reduce the distractions from studies, my friend as a kid was given a choice either to watch the TV show or the commericals in between and he chose the commericals. His strategy of wasting more time always worked !! And just in case you are not sure cows flying in the skies of Switzerland and then yielding great tasty milk is a fact or fiction, look at the bottom of the TV screen for the note 'publicita' which tells you that it's an advertisement, much to your relief .. !!
Here a few samples, selected with a great bias:
milk commerical (Swiss)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vVRivrXBO5Q
lottery commerical (US)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=FhcEp6PJJnc
mobile phone commercial (India)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=uNSF0WIZw2s
somehow I still like that advertisements made in India. Well, at the end, advertisements are not meant just to be pieces of art, but to touch the local sensibilities. My liking the Indian ads only shows that I am still desi at heart .. although am beginning to like the Swiss commercials as well !!
First thing is the language. Every time I punch a random number on the remote control of the TV, the first challenge is the number of seconds I need to figure out the language they are speaking. Right now it's 2 seconds for me from the time they start speaking very slowly. I do watch the news once in a while in Italian and English. There are some programs with quality, but I don't watch them, because they require some proficiency at the local languages. I somehow end up catching a glimpse of dubbed versions of flashy american programs - from Dr.House to Numbers to Gilmore girls to Desperate housewives .. and finally feel disgusted at myself.
The next thing is that the number of advertisements is limited. That's very refreshing compared to the US where there used to be a considerable amount of commercial air time breaking the continuity of the show exactly when you can not afford to miss the next few seconds of action (unless you dont mind wasting your money on a subscription to the ad-free HBO). Although I still do not know the exact pattern of the ads here, I see that there are not as many ads for cars and definitely know Switzerland is a happy country as there are not as many ads about anti-depressants as in the US. The number of tv commericals are really high in India. Imagine watching a 2:30 hour movie over 5 hours !! It's not an exaggeration if it's a very popular and recent movie. To reduce the distractions from studies, my friend as a kid was given a choice either to watch the TV show or the commericals in between and he chose the commericals. His strategy of wasting more time always worked !! And just in case you are not sure cows flying in the skies of Switzerland and then yielding great tasty milk is a fact or fiction, look at the bottom of the TV screen for the note 'publicita' which tells you that it's an advertisement, much to your relief .. !!
Here a few samples, selected with a great bias:
milk commerical (Swiss)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vVRivrXBO5Q
lottery commerical (US)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=FhcEp6PJJnc
mobile phone commercial (India)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=uNSF0WIZw2s
somehow I still like that advertisements made in India. Well, at the end, advertisements are not meant just to be pieces of art, but to touch the local sensibilities. My liking the Indian ads only shows that I am still desi at heart .. although am beginning to like the Swiss commercials as well !!
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