2013 Flashback for Credit Cards

Today is the last day of Year 2013. To me, 2013 is the year of drastic changes and surprises. Let's have a quick flashback on what happened to the credit card industry in Year 2013:

1. Starting from 2013, Standard Chartered Bank has revised its rewards points system and benefits.
2. On 15th January, Hong Leong Bank launched Wise Credit Card that gives the highest ever cash rebate of 10% to cardholders who swiped minimum RM 50 for 10 times per month.
3. On 16th January, Citibank introduced its new card, the Citibank Rewards Platinum Card, cardholder can choose the rewards categories and transactions within the rewards categories will earn 5X Citi Rewards points.
4. In February, AEON Credit Service launched the AEON Watami Visa Classic Card, a special privilege card with exclusive rewards for dining in Watami Japanese Casual Restaurant. Cardholder can enjoy 3% quarterly cash rebate on total retail transactions outside Watami with accumulate spend of RM 3000 per quarter.
5. From 2nd May, the fee for IBG transactions done online via internet banking and mobile banking would be reduced from RM 0.50 to RM 0.10.
6. In July, CIMB Bank introduced the CIMB Cash Rebate Platinum MasterCard, a credit card that rewards cardholder for shopping online with 5% cash back while offering competitive cash rebate programme for other retail purchases.
7. From 1st August, Maybank imposed a 3-year expiration period on its TreatsPoints and also revised on the value of TreatsPoints.
8. In August, Standard Chartered Bank launched the SCB JustOne Platinum MasterCard Credit Card, a card that gives cardholder 15% rebates at all petrol stations for life.
9. From 29th November, OCBC Bank revised its Credit Cards' features. No more 5% cash rebate on dining, groceries, utility bills and petrol for OCBC Titanium Card.
10. In December, AEON Credit Service added new features to its Credit Cards in line with AEON BiG rebranding campaign to attract more new customers.

Year 2014 will be a challenging year for Malaysians. With the price increase of various items such as toll rates, electricity tariff rates, public transportation and possibly even further fuel subsidy cuts, we will need to be more prudent in our daily expenditures. 

In Year 2014, 48smart will continue to share more saving tips and news on goodies with all our readers. We hope you will like and support what we share. Last but not least, we would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone Happy New Year 2014, the best of health and wealth in the Year of Horse!