Jagshemash – Very Nice!

The market for credit cards is in many ways the same as the watch, toothpaste and shampoo industries – all long ago achieving their primary utility aims, making everything else since largely tinkering and marketing jazz.

It was no surprise then this week to hear MasterCard has launched a new gold laced, diamond studded credit card in the resource rich but internationally derided state of Kazakhstan.

Credit cards have long sought to deliver their holders greater utility than their basic transactional functions, be it through points systems, low fees or even the colour and design of a card.

This is on parity with the seemingly endless innovations of products such as toothpaste, which hasn’t really changed since fluoride was first added to oral hygiene products.

As the world economy teeters on the brink of a potentially very deep and painful recession, Kazkommertsbank has joined up with MasterCard to launch the ‘Diamond’.

The card features a 0.02-carat diamond embedded in its centre while it’s outer rim is laced with gold.

The card has a male and female version, for the discerning rich folk across the sprawling central Asian nation.

‘His’ version is emblazoned with a picture of a winged horse, while ‘Hers’ adorns a peacock.

The card is all about status and the bank is manufacturing scarcity by strictly limiting production to 1,000 with only 30 being released each month.

Kazakhstan was the last Soviet satellite territory to declare independence in 1991, and since then the country has turned out an estimated 12,000 millionaires from a population of 16 million.

Much have this has been attained from what has come out of the ground with the country harboring a bounty of mineral resources ranging from coal, uranium, precious minerals and diamonds.

The Diamond Card has an annual fee of US$1,000 (AU$1,500), a credit limit of $50,000 ($75,000) and round-the-clock access to a personal card ‘manager’.