Jhanvi has been using a credit card for the past 3 years, which she has been using to pay her mobile bills, electricity bills etc. To make her life easy and to make sure her payments are done on time she had opted for the auto payment of bills.

Three years without any hitches, Jhanvi suddenly got messages saying that none of her bills were paid. On enquiry, she found out that her credit card has expired and thus none of her payments were done.

I am pretty sure that many people would have gone through the same problem where they would have completely forgot about their credit card expiration date and end up in such a tough situation.

You might be wondering, is this expiry date important? Why can’t banks provide customers with no – expiration cards?

Well the answer is that, we must live with this expiration date at least for the time being.

Reasons for having expiration date

Security

Each year customers and banks lose millions on credit card fraud. The major card networks Visa and MasterCard have made it a mandatory for financial institutions to have the cards have an expiry date just so that there is an extra verification point that the card holder needs to enter for any financial transactions. This is because it is easy enough to get the credit card number but not easy to get the expiration date of a card. Therefore, all cards will have an expiration date at least for the time being till another solution is found.

Another security related reason for having expiration date on credit cards is that as technology improves so does the security of the card. For example, credit cards first had magnetic strips which were easily cloned then came EMV chip which were next to impossible to clone. When the EMV card was introduced all issuers urged their customers to exchange their card, which was a very large operation on its own. To avoid such hassles in the future the card issuers, give cards with expiration dates of say 3 years which at the time of expiration can be replaced with a better card.

Wear and tear

With continuous use of a credit card as with any object, it tends to be affected by wear and tear. This is more so in the case of the magnetic strip behind the credit card. With us using the credit card more the magnetic strip will be subjected to wear and tear. With too much damage the card might not read at all and it could lead to a situation where it makes it impossible for you to pay during an emergency. Also, the card number could also have been erased over the years making it almost impossible to read making it difficult to make any online transactions.

Having a card that has its numbers missing, logo missing and the lamination coming out does not paint a pretty picture of the card holder and the card issuer. Credit cards on their own is considered a privilege and should hold up the esteem of the bank and the card holder.

Conclusion    

overall the expiry date is not going anywhere unless an alternative security touch point is found. It is best to have your expiry date jotted down on a calendar and make sure you receive your new card on time, which if you don’t, call the issuer and rectify it. Also make a note of all the vendors/retailers or bills that you have associated with the card to pay automatically. Have a back up plan to these bills or dues in case your card does not reach on time.