Low APR credit card or 0% on purchases?

Don’t worry until you need to mate.

1 Like

When I need a loan then it will be too late. I can’t instantly improve my score, it’s going to take months :cry:

I have the same “problem”, monzo don’t offer me a loan, however virgin gave me a 0% cc so don’t worry, I think when they use experian we may get offered one hahahaha.
My recommendation, get a normal cc and put maybe your grocery spending and pay it off in full after the statement is issued, this way you will be boosting your credit HISTORY and forget what any cra say

Just don’t get drawn in by what CRA’s say in regards to improvements, get a credit card and just spend bits on it and pay it off in full every month or with a 0% card in instalments.

PayPal credit is always a option so long as you don’t rack up the spending to anything above what you can afford.

Next credit account, etc etc the list goes on just having something you use so that it appears on your credit record.

End of day it’s the banks / providers that set their own criteria for scoring, nothing to do with what CRA’s think should be done

It’s Monzo being weird and new to the loans game, their algorithms and lending decisions are all over the shop. Today out of nowhere they said £13,500k at 6.1% which isn’t too bad for that figure but you could potentially get 2.8% through Cahoot instead.
https://www.cahoot.com/products-and-services/personal-loans

I’m not saying that would be the one if you ever need it but basically don’t rely on Monzo to help you.

Again only go for a loan if you are totally in the shit and have no emergency savings.

If you haven’t already I’d recommend saving a few grand and keep it in Marcus for a seriously rainy day.

Hey

Credit scores are annoyingly complicated! One reason for this is that every lender will have a different score for you (there is no one credit score). So the same thing (eg. opening a credit card) could improve your score with one lender but reduce it with another.

It is true that in general having a higher credit card limit or having a credit card utilisation of 1% - 25% is seen as a positive thing - but, as mentioned, this wont be true for 100% of lenders.

That being said, there is more that goes into offering customers a loan/ overdraft/ etc. than just your credit score. Lenders must also assess a customers affordability and verify a customers stated income.

If you have a decent credit file (with no defaults/ etc.) and you are declined for credit - it is quite likely that you are declined for one of these reasons. In general, this is the most likely reason you cannot get a Monzo loan/ overdraft right now and is something we are working on and will improve in time! :nerd_face:

2 Likes

Thanks for the reply @TheoGibson :slight_smile:

My credit report is as clean as they come. No defaults, missed payments or anything. Like I said Experian seem to love me :confused: I Googled the average UK salary and mine is above this too. Is there someone at Monzo I can talk to who can give me the actual reason or is that not possible?

I have a £1,000 Monzo overdraft on the new APR thingy (mid range) which makes it even weirder :confused:

Hi, yesterday I was gonna switch to the new overdraft but I didn’t because monzo need to carry out a new hard search, could you please tell me why if I already have one? TIA

I have a £2.5k limit on my CC and Credit Karma also told me to increase to £4k or more. My utilisation is minimal because I only use it for work expenses and pay in full each month.

Going back to the title APR doesn’t mean anything on credit cards if you are paying in full.

If you want to just play the credit utilisation game, there’s no reason you couldn’t just put a hundred on it to pay off in full and carry on using Monzo card so you know you only ever need to budget that much to pay the bill.

If you are wanting cashback too, then it’s a case of all in to make the most of it. If you would normally spend £2000 a month using your debit card then aim for £1800 on CC as you may need a couple hundred for non credit card transactions, keep the £1800 in savings for the billing day so no temptation.

I would say in your particular case having a credit card and putting a small amount which is paid off in full will have maybe a 30 point increase in your score max. That’s most likely all it will do and won’t magically give you a Monzo loan. It really means diddly squat.

I would only every recommend it if you are very focused with spending and don’t see it as free money. Doesn’t matter if your limit was £100k just spend as normal.

They won’t go into detail. The only interesting thing is to find what your estimated salary is from the CRAs as Monzo give you brownie points for having a small delta. Not that you can do anything if it’s way off.

Not to single you out but they actually did :smiley:

Theo was a great help in understanding how Monzo see me financially and I now have a much better understanding of why I wasn’t accepted. I really appreciate him going above and beyond by reaching out and helping put my concerns at ease :relieved:

Long story short, they have a few things wrong about me and they know it. They’re working on this with a view to improving it all over the coming months.

Back on topic though… I think I’ll still go for your suggestion with a credit card to show that I’m responsible at paying things back but I’ll make sure I do it all in full each month. Then I’ll re-evaluate in a few months time to see if it’s worthwhile continuing or not.

Thank you to everyone else for their input too :heart:

2 Likes

:triumph: I think Monzo just don’t like me. They couldn’t tell me anything in chat at all. They literally no information to give to help me understand why, it was very much a just keep checking back to see if it changes. I wonder if it was because Theo gave you a one to one.

Does that mean they now know, or knew before?

1 Like

Ahhh that sucks. He said that he was free at the time which is why he offered to help but I could have got the same through in app chat. Perhaps if you retry you’ll get someone different who can help a little more?

They knew before. They’re working on it all as we speak and it should be improving :soon: :smiley:

You will!

3 Likes

Which credit card do you think you’ll go with?

Don’t bother using Credit Karma.

They are showing accounts in default that where closed when my bankruptcy started are default up to and including this month.

Checked on Credit Wise by Equifax with Capital One shows them closed on or around the correct date 3 years ago.

Need to check Experian now to confirm :wink:

Well they get the data from the CRA TransUnion. All Credit Karma do is crunch it into a nice interface to read.

Would be worth following up with TransUnion who can look into it and correct it. Or report it via Credit Karma instead.

https://m.transunion.co.uk/contact-us

As for Experian worth using this

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/creditclub/

I was going to get the Halifax Flexicard as their eligibility checker says I can have 9%.

However I’ve just used money savings expert comparison tool and they’ve given me an 80% chance of getting approved for a Sainsburys Nectar card which is 0% for 27 month.

Going to have a think and will probably apply for one tomorrow unless you can recommend any others?

I know that :wink:

Transunion not updated by the companies then only Equifax and Experian have been.

3 disputes raised with Transunion

Why are you worried about APR? If you are paying it in full each month it doesn’t matter if it’s a million APR :wink: