Articles, analysis, and updates from Blackcat, grouped under Fees & Costs.
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You paid a supplier at 6:40pm on a Friday. On Monday they email to say nothing has arrived. Nothing went wrong – the payment went out on the standard rail, and the standard rail does not run at weekends.
You're saving toward something with a rough date attached – a wedding deposit, a house move, a career break – somewhere under a year out. In this scenario, an ad promising up to 3% annually on a 12-month fixed term deposit looks tempting.
Most of us choose a card for reasons that have nothing to do with how it performs: the colour, a headline cashback number, the word free. Or follow our friends' choice.
You buy groceries, fill up the car, pay for a subscription, grab lunch — and a small percentage of what you spent quietly lands back in your account. No coupons. No stamps. No loyalty card to forget at home. That is card cashback in practice: a percentage of your everyday card purchases, returned to you in real money.
You’ve booked the flight, mapped the route, and reserved the car. Then you arrive at the counter and the agent asks for a card. Not just any card — a card that can handle a deposit hold of €500, €800, or sometimes more than €1,000. You hand over your card. It gets declined. The trip plan starts unravelling before you’ve even left the airport.
A payment card is probably the most-used financial tool you own — and the one you've thought about the least. You tap it at the checkout, type its number into online forms, and occasionally panic when you can't find it. But what actually is a payment card? How many types exist? Who issues them? And where does a credit card fit in?