Painless Plastic

Is a friend of yours (not you) having trouble maintaining an adequate bank balance or making at least a minimum payment on his or her credit card? Help is at hand for both problems: the "Clear Card." Several major corporations are issuing these cards to their employees. To illustrate how it works, assume that an employee buys an $80 dress and puts it on her Clear Card. Subsequently, $20 will be deducted from each of her next four paychecks. Companies issuing the card charge no interest on the unpaid balance. Because the deductions from the paycheck are automatic, the employee's credit report is spotless, at least for this account. E-Duction works with MasterCard to issues a MasterCard labeled as a Clear Card. Employees pay an annual fee of $29 and are extended a credit line of 2.5 percent of their annual salary. There is no interest charge. Further, the account is always "current" on the cardholders' credit reports because their monthly payments are automatically deducted from their monthly salaries. The article in Business Week reports that Reliance Insurance and Western Union are among the firms that offer the Clear Card to their employees. About 10 percent of Western Union's employees use Clear Card.