Do you know how we should read the Credit Card Statement?


One day, one of my friends called me, he was seeking my help in understanding his Credit Card Statement. He was getting a hard time understanding the statement. I have seen such kind of issue with other people. Only a few people may be able to understand the statement, not the full statement.

The statement usually has the following sections in every credit card statement:

  • Statement Summary
  • Account Summary
  • Due Details
  • Credit Limit Information
  • Statement Messages
  • Transaction Details
  • Rewards and Cash back Summary
  • Loan/EMI Information
Statement Summary:
Statement with Credit Balance

Statement with Debit Balance

The above images will give you a little idea about the statement summary. Following are the important information it contains
  • Statement Date - It's your billing cycle date. On this date every month your statement gets generated.
  • Card Number - It contains the number of the card that this statement belongs to.
  • Payment Due Date - This is the date till you have to make payment. If you miss this date then you will be penalized with a late fee.
  • Total Due -  This is usually the closing balance of the statement month.
  • Minimum Amount Due - If you are not able to pay the full Total Due by Payment Due Date, still you want to save the late fee. Then you should make a payment of this amount prior to the Payment Due Date.
Account Summary:
Account Summary without Cash Withdrawal
Account Summary with Cash Withdrawal

This section gives you an idea, how your statement balance got calculated. Opening Balance is the previous statement balance. Finance Charges tell you how much interest got charged on this statement.

Due Details:


I am holding around 6 Credit Cards, This very strange that I found this section in only one credit card statement. This section will tell you, how long you are not making payments on your credit card. This an important information as this impacts your Credit Score calculated by different agencies. 

Credit Limit Information:

This section will tell you how much is your credit limit and how much is remaining (Available for further purchase/cash). If you are holding any loan/EMI plan under your credit card, then the following formula didn't work for you:
Credit limit=Statement Balance + Available Credit limit.

Statement Messages:

Statement messages are really very important for everyone. If the bank is running offers/any changes are coming in the credit card they will publish using this section. This section is also used for general information about the card you are holding.

Transaction Details:
This section will be having all the transaction information for this statement. Every Company/Bank has its own way of displaying transactions in the Transaction Section.

Usually, you will find the following details in the transaction section:
  • Transaction Date
  • Transaction Reference ID
  • Transaction Description
  • Transaction Amount.
If you use these details then you can reconcile them with the Account Summary Section. If you have any confusion this is one of the ways to get rid of it.

Rewards and Cash back Summary:









Normally you get some reward or cash back point on using Credit Card. This section will tell you how nay points you have earned/burned and how many got lapsed.

Loan/EMI Information:






This section will tell you all the details of your different EMI plans. You will get the current position of your loan, how many EMIs are remaining, what is the interest rate(APR)?

Few Important points:
  • Statement layout varies region-wise. It has to follow certain compliance.
  • Usually, an online statement doesn't have the Card Number clear. But it depends on countries/region regulation.
Source of the Images: Standard Chartered, ICICI, HDFC, PayTM.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

SMS Vs DMS

Image
I swipe my Credit Card at POS terminal, it took two days for reflecting the balance on my card account. On the same day I have performed a transaction using my Debit Card at ATM machine and the balance got impacted immediately. Why we have difference in both transaction processing? How does it work?  This happened due the different messaging system used by the associations. Most of the associations are using SMS and DMS both for Transaction processing. Single Message System and Dual Message System these are the two ways for processing the card payment transactions. In Dual Message System we first get authorization transaction from the association, on the approval of this transaction issuer can block card holders Open To Buy (OTB) only. At the end of processing day or the cut off time defined by association, issuer gets another message in form of clearing file. On the processing of this file issuer will impact the balances of card holder and release the blocked OTB. SMS Vs DMS If we...
Read more

Tips and Trick of Selecting Credit Card

Image
Tips and Tricks of Selecting Credit Card These days whenever you visit any big store, near to billing counter you may easily find a gentleman, who is seeking your time so he can explain you that the credit card offered by his company is better than your credit card. Most of us are using one or more Credit Cards these days. Did you select your Credit Card or they selected you? What should you consider when you want to apply for a credit card offered by different companies? Joining Fees: Most of the companies offer cards with no joining fees. What if you go through their agreement you will find they would be having the Annual Fees/Membership Fees in the following years. Interest Rate:  Whenever you asked a sales representative about the Interest Rate they will always tell you 3.25% only. They never tell you that it's monthly rate not annual rate. Statement Date: I don't think anyone of us really bothers about that what should be your Statement Date while applying for a credit ca...
Read more

Card Holder's Agreement

Image
I was going through my last month's credit card statement. Normally, I see only a glance at the credit card statement. But, this time I stuck at the charges, I was not expecting any charges on my credit card statement. Then I start looking at the transaction details section and found membership fees on my statement. I got confused why this charge was there on my statement. Then I called customer care and inquired about the same. They explained everything to me and advised me to refer to my card Holder's Agreement, which I had signed at the time of signing up for the credit card. Card Holder's Agreement/Most Important Terms & Conditions/Disclosure/Terms & Conditions are the commonly known terms of Card Holder's Agreement. When applying for a credit card, everyone has to agree to these terms and conditions of a credit card. This is the most unnoticeable document, which will be ignored by most credit card users due to its lengthy format, and many times we assume we...
Read more