Update: Owing to RBI Guidelines, this card is currently suspended. There is hope that it shall return once the guidelines become relaxed or some other format of the part payment scheme may return. Until then, we will miss this card and its amazing concept.
The suspension is active since 1st December 2022.
Hello dear readers,
As you may have read in my previous post on credit cards, I do own a few cards. I use them for specific purposes, the AMEX card to gain the rewards, ICICI-Amazon card to get cashback on Amazon, ICICI-HPCL card for some fuel related cashbacks, HSBC Platinum card since it is lifetime free and has occasional offers on it.
Of these cards, only the Amazon card offers me an option for No cost EMI for 3/6/9 months, on selected products, only on Amazon. What if, there was a card, which would provide us with a similar no cost EMI option for all spends? I feel it would be brilliant.
A few days ago, I watched a video on Youtube describing the Uni 1/3rd card. The USP of this card is that it lets you choose to split your bill on each spend, whether you want to pay it in full or convert it into a no cost EMI for 3 months. This appealed to me greatly. For the relatively big ticket spends, they can now be converted into more affordable packets for a period of 3 months, and that too is not restricted by a website or platform as such. Off course, most of the other cards offer the option to convert a big spend into EMIs but there is always an interest rate attached to it, which is not the case here for the three months period. Also, if you choose to pay the bill in full, there is a 1% cashback. 1% may not sound a lot, but it is worth the amount in actual rupees, which is in turn almost 4 to 5 times more in worth than each reward points earned. Also, the card is Visa powered, hence, no issues with acceptance. So, convinced that this is a good idea, I applied for the card.
The application process is simple enough. You download the app and sign up for a new card. A quick KYC based on your PAN card, Aadhar Card and a selfie later, you have the card assigned to you with a fair credit limit. It took about 24 hours for me to have the card available online for transactions and in a week, the card arrived home.
The box was nice and the card is minimalistic. In the box, there was the card, a mask, a bag tag and a small packet of Toblerone chocolate. Overall, a simple yet thoughtful gesture towards initiating a new customer into the fold.
As of now, I am looking forward to using this card mainly for the transactions which generally do not yield much points or cashbacks, so that the advantage of the card’s 1% cashback can be utilized.
Also, the card and its app are in beta stage, simply put, it is still a very new card, so a lot more facilities and uses of the card is expected soon.
If you apply for the card now, you’ll be one of the early adopters of the card, and that is rewarded by Uni by not charging the joining or annual fee. This may change in the future though.
Finally, in my opinion, this card provides a good proposition towards owning and using a credit card. Off course, like all cards, always ensure that you are able to pay your dues in full. What makes this interesting is that if you pay in full, which you are expected to anyway, you get 1% cashback, so, that is an incentive to pay in full. And if you are just not able to accommodate the full payment or feel a little stressed about the big purchase that you have done, split the bill into 3 parts and pay with relative ease. I would recommend this card to people who have a financial discipline in place and know how to handle their finances. It is easy to overspend when you are paying just a fraction of the cost immediately. So, good luck with using this promising card and I am hoping that more facilities are made available soon.
Feel free to put up thoughts and questions as comments to the post.
Until the next post,
Cheers!!
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