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.
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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
Buying GuidesJoint accounts and family banking: shared relationships, shared cards
Indian households rarely bank alone. Salaries, savings, and spending flow through a family web — spouses, parents, sometimes adult children — and banks have built an entire product layer around it: family banking program
Buying GuidesSwitching your banking relationship for better card terms: the full playbook
Every cardholder eventually hits the same wall: the bank that issued your first card will not waive the fee, will not upgrade the variant, will not raise the limit — while a competing bank waves a better card with better
Buying GuidesRelationship-value upgrades and fee waivers: asking your bank for better card terms
Nobody's credit card terms are as fixed as they look. The annual fee printed in the welcome kit, the variant you were issued two years ago, the limit set at approval — all of these are negotiable for customers the bank v
Buying GuidesFD-backed cards and account-based limit enhancement: how collateral raises your ceiling
There is a peculiar Indian workaround for the hardest problem in credit: how do you get a credit card when no bank will give you one? You lend the bank money first. A fixed deposit-backed — secured — credit card flips th
Buying GuidesPremium banking bundles: when the bundled card is worth the relationship
Open a premium savings account at any large Indian bank and you will be offered a bundle: the account itself, a credit card with the fee waived, a debit card with higher limits, a locker at a discount, maybe insurance or
Buying GuidesZero-balance and student account combos: building your first credit relationship
Every credit history starts somewhere, and for most young Indians it starts with an account that costs nothing to open and nothing to maintain: the zero-balance savings account, often opened as a student account on a col