As we know of, we have been accustomed to several currency notes in South Africa, the R10, R20, R50, R100 and R200 notes. But there now seems to be a new dominant ‘note’ in the South Africa economy today and it is the credit card. The beauty of this ‘note’ is you can use it to make your purchases and the seller will not keep it, unlike when you give them a R100 note, instead they will gladly swipe it through a machine, make you sign a slip and give it back to you.

The reason I refer to the credit card as the new ‘note’ is because, the credit card is quickly replacing the traditional cash notes in our wallets today. From a convenience point of view, it is much easier to go and do all your shopping using your credit card, all you do is swipe, sign and not have to worry about counting notes and having to receive change and at times receive coins which you hardly ever use, unless off course you have to pay for your parking. But mind you, even paying for your parking can now be done using your credit card. Using a credit card is also safer as you do not run the risk of carrying cash on you which could easily go missing or be stolen, but then, if your credit card goes missing or gets stolen before you block it, chance are that someone will have a nice shopping trip at your expense.

What amazed me was that, I went into Woolworths this weekend to look for a new wallet. All the wallets I came across had a very ‘thin’ space for notes, I doubt I could fit more than 10 notes without the wallet struggling to close. But what I found in abundance in all the wallets was space for credit cards! One wallet had 10 ’slots’ where a credit card could fit. I thought to myself, “Who could honestly have 10 credit cards?” But the reality is, there are people in South Africa today who do have 10 credit cards and chances are they are highly in debt. If your financial situation was okay, why then would you need 10 credit cards?

You can not fault the retailers for making wallets now which are primarily used for storing credit cards as opposed to cash as they have seen that there is a market for such wallets. Whatever happened to the good old fashioned wallet with space for up to 3 cards and room to fit a couple of notes?

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