Lately, many banks ventured into issuing credit cards to eligible and interested ones, alluring them with assurances of various facilities. Such offers include the tie-up of various business concerns and issuance of supplementary cards for near & dear ones. But they do not forget to charge hefty amounts as interest and principal o the principal card. This comes atop of almost all card-accepting establishments debiting a minimum of 3% on each shopping and dining.

I do not know if the Bangladesh Bank, the central bank of the country, has any role to play here to relieve the credit card users from such dual taxation. I must urge for some governmental intervention despite knowing that our finance minister wants to over-burden us with extra taxes on credit card users.

It's high time that the controlling authority, if any, should look into this credit card business altogether and try to relieve the users' owes by following the methods outlined below:

(1) Credit Card should be offered, free of charge, to all eligible clients as the users already pay heavy interest every month. (Many overseas companies/banks offer credit cards free of charge while some charge a nominal fee).

(2) Business establishments, which are entrusted by the card cos./banks to honour their cards, must not be charged, or charged only a commission, or deduct any percentage for the transactions.

(3) The interest rate on local credit cards is the highest in the world. Bangladesh Bank should look into it and enforce a limit to charging interest to relieve the burden of the middle class consumers.

(4) Banks should formulate plans, like their counterparts abroad, to offer cards free of charge or at a very nominal cost with variable interest rates for a particular period to attract more customers. Interest may go high only to a reasonable level at the end of any special offering period.