December 4, 2016 at 1:00 am

With the economic reforms in India continuing and the 50 day deadline approaching, this is the second of the informative series. We check about Plastic Money their varieties and benefits and why we still need cash. If you are worrid about using debit or credit cards and the fear of theft and how to overcome this here are a few options. Listed below are the different types of plastic money.

Prepaid Cards: You need to bush these from banks the advantage is cash can be reloaded into the card multiple times. It is ideal if one is not interested in using the main bank debit card or give it to someone for shopping requirements risk is limited to the amount loaded. It can be used for purchasing offline or online and also can help to withdraw cast from ATM. These can be bought from banks and can have multiple reloads. Payments can be made to people who do not have bank accounts and neither need one for this purpose. Those prepaid cards issued by non bank entities can be used to buy online and offline products. The only thing which can be done with the non bank entity prepaid cards are withdrawal of cash form ATM’s.

Gift Card: Everything is the same in this card as the prepaid card. The only thing that one cannot do is withdraw cash and it cannot be reloaded with cash if money gets exhausted. Therefore it is for one time loading purpose.

E Wallet Card: Some banks which offer this facility of ewallet applications issue them and through them users can buy products offline by swiping the ewallet card.

Petro Card: Oil companies are the ones which issue these cards for the purpose of filling fuel and they have some addon benefits like loyalty points as per the program etc.

Specific Shop Cards: Big malls, Super markets, Hotels, Travel companies and the like issue these preloaded cards an other benefit of this card is the facility of multiple usage at a specific store.

The benefits of cards with limit like prepaid cards are there is no need of exposing your main account, this provides a way to control spending and get benefits which a debit card would get you. Facility to reload money and use for either small or big payments.

Why do we need still cash? What is the need for cash despite less cash system being introduced?

The answers to this question is more than 70 percent of India is still in rural villages and towns and this constitutes a big chunk of population of the country which was relying solely on cash since cash paper money was introduced. They are comfortable and there is a sense of confidence with cash despite cash having many loopholes in the case of storage, checking, transfer, theft loss etc. Another point to understand is India is still a developing economy, benefits of development have not trickled down to the last person who is supposed to be the beneficiary. People need cash for daily living like purchase of  provisions, vegetables, water, school fees chit funds and other such expenses, domestic staff needs cash for day to day needs as they do not have access to banking channels and gadgets. Hardware industries traders, welders, carpenters, masons, daily wagers and  the other old school of traders still prefer money over these other systems as it has worked for centuries which gives them the trust in cash despite risks which inherent. While cities may adapt  faster in the villages the situation is worse . Banking sector is not visible or you may find a bank in a radius of between 15 to 30  or even 40 kms. Banking and finance sector has to gear up to the challenge and the government cannot sit and play a passive role after having started the process by paying mere lip service. Government can also think of issuing cashless cards to replace paper ones so they can have control and public will also be assured. “Where there is a will there is a way”. But also do remember “Rome was not built in a Day”. Hope the people who matter also read this article. Dear readers hope this article was informative and of some use do add any additional information which you may feel needs to be mentioned in the comments column.