The high cost of free credit

BACK in the 90s, when I first started working, certain financial institutions introduced “lower end” credit cards for Malaysians who had just entered the job market.

The limits on these credit cards would vary depending on your salary, and the one I chose had a RM5,000 credit limit. There were also cards that offered a RM3,000 credit limit. These are really small numbers, but to many salaried employees who earned below RM1,000 a month, the credit cards were a boon.