20th century biggest innovation though never recognized is undisputedly Credit Cards. Credit Cards have opened up a whole new world, world were people carry buying power of millions in pockets, easiest way to get credit from banks, New ways for bank to serve easy fast soft loans, Shopping a whole new joyful experience and best way to blind fold consumers.
I'm not against Credit cards, I just want to define a more useful purpose a credit card can play in peoples life who probably would never be able to have one. Ever wondered what happens to all the points that get accumulated while you swipe your credit cards to glory?
Clueless, Yes I have been using these babies for around a decade now and I still do not understand the right meaning of collecting points and using them in any possible way. Basically it works something like this - "When a user swipes a card, for every unit (can be some amount of money, say 100) you earn some basic points". Well, its not practical for everyone to go back to check point balance or to see if they can be used in any possible ways month to month bases. So these points get accumulated over time and either get lapsed or get converted to some small negligible amount in our billing history.
Idea is to pick up these trashed away points earned over credit cards, consult the Bank and the user to get an agreement to use these points either for charity or trade locally produced products from small scale industries to help them beat the market and recession. To make this work, first we would need to convince banks to add this optional program and to mention these in auto teller messages for user awareness. Next step would be to identify these small scale industries falling into this bracket and get set with a list of featured products. Third would be to convince bank that the money conversion of these points is authentic.
I understand this is no direct way of making money, but helping these small and home businesses sustain and carry on can be huge boost for the economic weaker sections of business hierarchy !!
