Online tips to use credit wisely and tools to take charge of your money too

Looking for information on how to better manage your credit card? How about financial planning tools to help you save up for your children’s education or retirement? All these and more are just one click away in Citibank Philippines’ Use Credit Wisely website.

For more than four years now, the country’s leading foreign bank has been credited for having the most comprehensive online reference guide on credit management in the Philippines. Simply point your browser to www.usecreditwisely.citibank.com.ph to access round-the-clock information on the following topics:

• Know the rules, which gives users information on all things about credit and how credit cards work.

• Spend responsibly, where one can find details on gaining financial control and handling hard times such as living with a disability or how to cope following a marriage breakdown.

• Be protected, that treats users to information on fraud prevention, identity theft and their legal rights.

According to Citibank Philippines’ country business manager Mark Jones, their Use Credit Wisely website continues to enjoy visitor traffic, and has become a leading source of financial information among their clients and the general public.

“We continue to receive positive feedback on Use Credit Wisely, plus suggestions on related information that our audience will find useful. These prompted us to revisit the website and introduce new and interactive features including online calculators and quizzes,” related Jones.

The website’s new offerings include a Savings Builder calculator where users only need to type in their age and how much they are saving each month. This will then generate a report on the size of their savings pot when the user reaches age 40, 50 and 60, computed with compounded interest.

“Savings Builder was designed to show people the magic of compound interest. They may think P1,000 set aside monthly won’t be worth much in 10 or 20 years. But it’s actually a good start. If you saved P1,000 each month at age 20, and kept this saving discipline for 20 years, your total savings will be P480,000. Assuming monthly compounding at 9% per annum, that fund will be worth nearly P670,000,” Jones explained.

“If you continued to set aside P1,000 for another 10 years, when you’re 50, that will be around P1.8 million, and 10 more years of saving the same amount monthly will give you close to P4.5 million – quite a good nest egg,” added Jones.

Other online calculators featured in the site help visitors compute for their debt ratio and check cost of a PayLite transaction. “The former is useful to check how much of your income goes towards servicing debt, while the latter is for Citi cardholders who are considering a big-ticket purchase and would like to see the monthly payments depending on their payment terms – from 3 to 24 months,” said Jones.

Visitors may also find it handy to take the quiz on “Do you need a credit card?” and consult a checklist on “How prepared are you?” for life’s emergencies. The site also features an interactive Citi credit card statement of account, to help clients understand it better.