[Opinion] Credit Card Debt

I happened to stay in Sudan for 15 days while I was on a mission trip to Sahara a few years ago. To buy an air ticket back home, I changed dollar to Sudanese currency. It was such a large amount of money that I needed a tennis bag to carry it. I was given bundles of bills. There were supposed to be 100 bills in each bundle, but one or two bills were missing in many cases. When you travel to North Korea or underdeveloped countries in Africa or Central Asia, you come to realize how convenient credit cards are. When the day restaurants in Pyongyang are posted with such marks as `VISA` or `Master,` we can say that North Korea has adopted a market economy.

It has been 25 years since credit cards were first introduced in this country. Until 1993, however, the total amount of credit card transactions was less than 1 trillion won. The number of credit card users began to increase sharply since the late 1990, and the amount of transactions reached 623 trillion won in 2002. Now the country ranks fourth in amount of credit card transactions following U.S., Britain and China. It is even ahead of France and Japan. In line with the surge of credit transactions, however, such social ills as credit card fraud and default also emerged. Unable to pay credit card debt, people choose to commit crimes or kill themselves.

From economic perspective, credit cards have become a necessity like a car, but there is a fatal flaw in them. They have an accelerator without a brake. Even office workers who earn a good deal of money tend to use credit cards too often, and later regret it when they get month-end bills. There is an old saying `People eat a cow on credit`, which allures human desire to spend. Credit cards are credit transactions guaranteed by banks. For those who cannot retrain themselves from spending too much, they are bank checks leading to default. We need to build a brake ourselves, therefore. Self-restraint, planning and feelings of responsibility can be parts of the brake.

Many of credit defaulters are college students who have yet to earn money for living. In part, credit card companies must be held accountable for issuing cards indiscreetly to young students. Yet, parents and the society are also to be blamed for failing to educate young people about responsibilities. And if the government provides too much support to credit defaulters, it might result in misleading people to feel free from economic responsibilities. It will be better to cut in half your credit cards if they are not equipped with a brake

Hang Ho-taek, Editorial Writer, hthwang@donga.com