The CardBuzz blog
Card-by-card write-ups from our team, features, fees, lounge access and who each card actually suits. For the numbers after every cap and exclusion, head to the card pages.
5279 posts · Page 192 of 440 · View the full archive
Deals & OffersBank referral bonuses decoded: how refer-and-earn actually pays out
Somewhere in every bank's marketing there is a "refer and earn" page promising rewards for bringing friends aboard. Most cardholders have seen one, few have ever received a payout, and almost nobody understands why a ref
Credit HealthEnquiry and personal sections: the credit report parts people skip
Every credit report has a headline section — the score and the account summary — that gets all the attention, and two supporting sections that almost nobody reads: the enquiries section and the personal-information secti
Credit HealthSettled vs closed vs written-off: decoding account status codes
The account status field is the most misread column on an Indian credit report. Borrowers see "settled" and think it means the loan is done and dusted. They see "closed" and assume all closures are equal. They see "writt
Credit HealthHow new accounts and closed accounts appear on your credit report
Accounts are born and die on your credit report on their own timetable — not yours. A credit card you were approved for last week may not appear for a month or two. A loan you closed last year still sits on the file, his
Credit HealthCredit report monitoring cadence and free pulls: a practical schedule
Everyone agrees you should "monitor your credit report regularly." Almost nobody does, because "regularly" is not a schedule — it is a vague intention that loses to everything else in life. The borrowers who actually cat
Credit HealthCo-applicant and guarantor entries on credit reports: what they mean
Open a credit report and every account carries an ownership tag: individual, joint, co-applicant, guarantor, or authorised user. Most borrowers understand "individual" — it is their account. The other tags are where conf
Credit HealthFixing name, address and identity mismatches on your credit report
Your credit report is matched to you by identity: your name, date of birth, PAN, address, and phone number. When those identifiers are wrong — a misspelt name, an old address, a date of birth off by a digit — the consequ
Credit HealthHard vs soft inquiries: what credit checks really do to your score
Few credit topics generate as much anxiety as enquiries. Borrowers worry that checking their own score will lower it, that comparing two loan offers will cost them points, that a rejected application leaves a permanent s
Credit HealthDisputing wrong entries on your credit report: the playbook that works
Somewhere in India right now, a borrower is being rejected for a loan because of an account they never opened, a delinquency they never committed, or a loan their bank forgot to mark closed. Bureau data is compiled from
Credit HealthCIBIL vs Experian vs Equifax vs CRIF: how India's four credit bureaus differ
India does not have one credit score. It has four credit bureaus — CIBIL (TransUnion CIBIL), Experian, Equifax, and CRIF High Mark — each maintaining its own database, computing its own scores, and feeding reports to len
Credit HealthHow to read a CIBIL report line by line: every section explained
Most Indians pull their CIBIL report once, glance at the score on the first page, feel either reassured or alarmed, and close the tab. That is a mistake. The score is a single number summarising months — often years — of
Buying GuidesAccount-vs-card reward stacking: earning on both sides of the relationship
Most cardholders optimise one side of their banking relationship: the credit card's reward points. But the relationship has two earning surfaces. The account side — savings balances, debit card spending, account-linked r