Just because the face of the card is gold? The New Normal for Selecting a Credit Card in the Era of “60% of Gold Card Holders Have Annual Incomes of ¥4 Million

A “Gold Card” with no annual fee is also available.

A survey conducted by NTT DOCOMO has become a hot topic in some circles. The survey found that 63% of those who hold so-called “gold cards” had annual incomes of less than 4 million yen. The headline reads, “Gold Cards Becoming ‘Popular’ in Japan.

The Gold Card referred to here includes not only the “d-card GOLD” issued by NTT DOCOMO, but also cards issued by other companies. The fact that the survey includes the item “d-card GOLD is the top gold card in terms of number of cardholders” suggests that the survey itself was conducted as part of a publicity campaign. Even taking this into account, the result that “users’ annual income is not that high,” unlike the general image of Gold Card, must have aroused interest.

The sinking of the “Gold Card” brought about by the card companies themselves

However, similar surveys have been conducted in the past few years, and there is not much difference between this survey and the one conducted by NTT DOCOMO. Therefore, those who are somewhat familiar with the credit card industry should not feel any discomfort.

To begin with, the popularization of gold cards can be said to have been spearheaded by the credit card companies. In the mid-1990s, gold cards for young people first became popular. This was a strategy by credit card companies to attract users in their 20s.

This was followed by the emergence of the “cheap gold card. Many of them had even lower annual fees than those for young people, and some of them had an annual fee of less than 2,000 yen, including tax. This low-cost gold card was more the result of a search for a new source of revenue than a forward-looking strategy by the card companies.

Just because the face of the card is gold…what is the value of a “gold card”?

The reason is that “Rakuten Card” had already begun to wreak havoc at that time. The existing credit card companies could not compete with the then unparalleled specifications of “no annual fee and 1% point redemption rate. As a countermeasure, they tried to sell off the status and premium feel of gold cards and secure revenue from the annual membership fee by offering low-cost gold cards.