Applied Bank Secured Visa Gold Card Review

Secured credit cards are a good option for consumers who have a negative credit history keeping them from being approved for traditional credit card. The Applied Bank® Secured Visa® Gold Credit Card has a few great perks. For example, it has a fixed 9.99% interest rate that never changes, even if you’re late on a credit card payment. There’s no penalty APR for late payments.

Credit Limit and Bureau Reporting

Your credit limit is equal to your security deposit as long as it’s between $200 and $5,000. While your deposit is placed in an account, you don’t earn any interest on the deposit. Applied Bank says it reports your account history to the credit bureaus, which is a big benefit considering a secured credit card is a great chance to get approved for a regular credit card.

Credit Card Fees

Fees on the Applied Bank Secured Visa are minimal. There’s no annual fee or an account setup fee. But, there is a $30 fee to order an additional credit card. The maximum fee for late payments, returned payments, or a credit limit overage is $35 as allowed by Federal law. There’s no balance transfer fee, because you can’t transfer balances with this card. You can take out cash advances and the fee is either $5 or 5% whichever is greater. You’ll pay a 3% foreign transaction fee for purchases made in other countries.

There are a few other fees that aren’t listed in the credit card disclosure, that you’d only find if you combed through the credit card agreement. There’s a $30 stop payment fee if you need to stop payment on a cash advance check. You’ll pay a $.50 account information fee for making inquiries on an automated call on the credit card’s 1-800 number. The first two in each billing cycle are free, but each inquiry is treated separately, even if made on the same call. You’ll be charged a $12.95 fee to expedite a payment to avoid a late fee. There’s also a fee to increase your credit limit (even though you have to make the deposit to increase your limit).

Major Drawback

Up until now, mostly everything about the Applied Bank Secured Visa has been positive. However, there’s one big drawback – there’s no grace period on transactions. The benefit of a grace period is that you get a few weeks to pay your balance and avoid paying any interest on the account. However, the Applied Bank Secured Visa starts charging interest on your purchases immediately and the minimum finance charge is $.50. The only way to minimize your interest charges on this card is to pay your balance before the billing statement even arrives.