Hey everyone, this is Stephane Fouche

So, I wanted to share a story with you guys

The story is of me, traveling fromJapanin order to make it toChina

So flying Korean Air, I had a layover in Busan

So usually, I have layovers in Seoul when I’m flying toChina

This time, Busan, and it’s a ten hour layover

I told myself that since I had some work to do

I would just stay at the airport, and finish doing my work

I arrive at Busan, and the lady at the counter tells me that

“Oh, this is not a 24 hour airport”

I tell myself, what do you mean?

“Sorry sir, we are going to have to escort you outside”

So here am I, in Busan

I can’t withdraw money because the ATMs are closed

I can’t change the money that I have on me

Because all the banks and all the Travelex,money changing businesses

All of them were closed

And I’ve never been to Busan before

I start to panic

I have no hotel reservations, it’s cold outside, so I just started to look at the map

Luckily, this was my third time inKorea

To travel in Korean there is a small little card, it’s called T-money, T-pac

What you can do is you use it, you tap, and you get in the subway system

I had some money left

So I looked at the map, and I asked myself, which is the biggest station around the airport

And it was Sasang

Tapped, got into the system, made into Sasang, and gotout

So I’m just looking around, looking for a bank

looking for somewhere where I can change the money that I have

or withdraw money from my bank accounts

And I still cannot find one

And I look into my wallet, and I tell myself, I have my credit card

And I called the people saying that I’ll be inKorea, so let me try to see if it works

So I start walking around and I saw a lot of hotels and motels

I didn’t know which one to choose

You had La Vie, Jazzy luxury motel

So I just went to the one that looks decent

So I went in, and as I got into the hotel there is this big massive fish tank

The name of the motel was luxury motel

It was quite luxurious for a motel in that area

So I passed them my card and I’m like

“Do you guys take credit card?”

And they go, “which one?”

I say “do you guys take Visa?”

And they say, “no problem at all”

So I pass my credit card to them

It’s this, or I sleep outside

And they swipe it into the machine

And they say, ”mister, could you please sign?”

At that point I felt relieved

I was like finally, I can find a place to stay

I have enough money on my train card, in order to take the subway back to the airport

And I can work during the night, and finally make it into Beijing the next day

So, as you probably guessed it

The story today has to do with payment methods

If we go down the list we have

Credit cards, debit cards, cash, checks, bank transfer, money order, you can name it

There is a lot of them

We humans as a society have created complex and convoluted ways

From bartering, cash, and now electronic payment to complete one simple task

You already guessed it, it’s paying for goods and services

So why do we need credit cards?

Well, I have three reasons for you right now

One is that credit cards are convenient

Instead of having to carry a lot of cash

People are always guaranteed to have the amount they will need

If you have a five thousand dollar credit card

It’s like having five thousand dollars in Cash that you can use

The other one is, you have points and cashbacks

So the more you use it, the more points you get

You can use it to buy stuff online, and you can use it to travel for cheap airlines and so on

It’s like a game, you want to have more points, so you use your credit cards for everything

The last one, and this is something that saved my life when I was inKorea

For emergency situations

So this sort of relate to the fact that credit cards are convenient

The more places it’s accepted the better it is

because you can feel comfortable that if you don’t

have enough cash in your pocket, you can always rely on your credit card

Now looking at it from a different perspective

From the store owner, they either love it, or they hate it

The reason why is that, using the cards

It cuts into their margins

Because the store owners are charged a fee when their customer is using them

So visa is going to get a little portion, master card, union pay, JCB, whatever the company is

On the other hand, if you have a card, you don’t see how much money you have in your wallet

So you just go, put it on the card, put it on the card

So you just keep on spending and spending and spending

Which is great, you go on shopping, you go on eating and you spend a lot more money

So for these restaurants

Having a credit card can actually help them make more money

even though they have to pay a fee to visa and the rest

Nonetheless, not all the cards are the same, there is such a variety of them

So some of them are harder to get, and some are easier to get

Your debit card from your bank account, that’s the easiest you can get

But speaking from my experiences, in theUnited States

Some cards require to have a really high income, and really really high income

Other cards are almost impossible to get unless you have an impeccable credit score

The card that I would like to focus today is a special one

which is called American Express Black Card

What’s so special about this card?

So the more money you make, the higher your limit, 2000, 5000

The Black Card has no limit, seriously, no limit

You can literally buy a Ferrari with it, an Audi with it

You can buy whatever you want because there is no limit

It’s accepted almost everywhere in the world

And the people who use it, are actually the celebrities and the rich

In order to keep the card, the person who owns it has to spend a minimum

A minimum of 250,000 dollars every single year

So imagine you are at your next business meeting and you are trying to impress your customer

And you whip out that card, you put on the table and pay with it

It leaves a really good impression

The higher the qualifications for a card, the higher it shows the status of the card owner

Such high status of cards are akin to having literally a Ferrari in your wallet

If you look at it, luxury cars, mansions, you name it

They are a way for celebrities, and of course the rich, to brag

You want to show to the world what you are capable

You want to show your power, how much money you have, how much you can do

If you are going back toChinaand we are taking the example of cars

You have the Audi, it’s a favorite car sought after by the rich

And you now have the Red Flag, which is a symbol of high status in Chinese society

especially high status in the government

It seems simple right? Just what a card can do, just what a little card in your wallet can do

So bring it back to payment methods, and credit cards specifically

The question that I have is, which method do you use to pay your bill, do you still carry cash?

Do you have a debit card? Is it union pay? Visa? What’s that little symbol on it?