I write about credit cards the way I wish someone had explained them to me.
No affiliate links. No hype. Just numbers, trade-offs, and the honest answer to “is this card worth it for me?”
I’m Arun — a Chartered Accountant working in finance leadership for the last 14 years. I currently lead Finance & Accounts at Cashify, and before that spent six years at HealthKart as GM Finance. My day job has always involved reading fine print, running spreadsheets, and asking one stubborn question: where does the money actually go?
This site exists because I got tired of applying that same question to my own wallet and finding very few honest answers online.
Why a credit card site?
A decade ago I made every rookie mistake — picked a card for the joining offer, missed a payment during a busy week, paid 42% interest on a ₹90,000 outstanding for four months. The maths of that single lapse stuck with me.
Over the years, friends kept asking the same questions. Should I upgrade to Infinia? Is Magnus really worth ₹12,500? What’s the catch with those ‘lifetime-free’ cards? I’d pull up the issuer’s T&C page, run the value math, and send back a short note. Eventually I started saving those notes. That’s what Credit Smart India is.
What you’ll get here
Numbers, not hype
Every review is built around real spend scenarios — not the marketing claim, but the net benefit after annual fees.
Source-of-truth data
Fees and reward rates are verified against the bank’s official page before I publish. Corrections welcome.
No affiliate bias
I don’t run affiliate links or earn commission on card sign-ups. If a card is bad for you, I’ll say so.
Written for Indians
Indian slabs, Indian tax rules, Indian spending patterns. No recycled US personal-finance advice.
How I decide what’s “worth it”
A card is only as good as the spend that flows through it. So every review asks three questions:
- What’s the true annual cost? (Joining + annual fee + GST, minus any real waiver triggers.)
- What does the reward rate look like at my spend level? Not the headline rate — the effective rate after caps, exclusions, and redemption discounts.
- Would I recommend this to a friend at their specific income & usage level? If no, the review says no.
How this site makes money
Short answer: it doesn’t. I don’t run affiliate links, banner ads, or sponsored content. No bank has ever paid to appear here and none ever will. If I mention a card positively, it’s because the math worked out for a specific user profile — nothing else.
What this means practically: if I tell you a card is not worth it, you can trust that I don’t lose anything by telling you that.
What this site is not
I’m not a lawyer, I’m not your financial advisor, and none of this is professional investment or legal advice. I write from experience — yours may differ. Always verify the current terms on the issuer’s official page before you apply. My job is to help you ask better questions, not to make the decision for you.
Get in touch
If you spot an error, have a card you’d like reviewed, or want to disagree with something I’ve written — send me a note. I read everything.
Read a review or two
Pick a card, see the math, decide for yourself.
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