The FNBO secured credit card is a Visa with EMV chip offered by FNBO Bank. It should help you to build your credit score. Why is a credit score so important? A good credit score can save you a lot of money in interest on auto loans and mortgage. It can also give you valuable benefits in the form of a cash bonus when you open a new credit card with a signup bonus.
FNBO Secured credit card is one of those cards which you may consider. Offered by a big respectable bank this Visa card may seem appealing. When you make a security deposit between $300 and up to $5,000 you can use the same credit limit. After 7 months of payments on time FNBO can increase your credit limit without need for additional deposit.
The noticeable benefit of the FNBO Secured Credit Card is graduation. Just like in college but much easier. When you pay off your balance on time every months for some time your credibility with your bank increases. At some point bank can trust you and return your money. In case of this FNBO Secured card after 11 months of payments on time they can return your security deposit and upgrade your card to unsecured one.
The Secured Credit Card of FNBO doesn’t have an annual fee, which makes it a fine choice to hold in the long term. There are many secured and unsecured credit cards for bad credit that charge origination fee, monthly fee, annual fee. FNBO Secured card has no any of these fees.
Additionally they report your payments to 3 credit bureaus every months. It means your credit score can be improved quite soon.
The FNBO credit card has 3% foreign transaction fee. It means using the card abroad is not a good idea. There are credit cards that have no international transaction fees that you can use to buy things in currencies other than US dollars.
Before you apply for this secured credit card make sure you pay off all your credit card debt. It makes no sense to build you credit score if you still cannot manage credit. Carrying any balance using the FNBO credit card is expensive. The APR is 23% which makes building credit score meaningless.
Cash advance and balance transfer of this card will cost you an arm and leg. Fees for cash advance and balance transfer is 5% or $15 whichever is greater. It makes these transfers very expensive.
Being late with minimum payment on a secured credit card is probably the worst thing you can do. It not only costs $40 but also hurts your credit score.
Overall I think the FNBO Secured credit card is a fine choice to build your credit score and keep the card for a long time.