Capital One

Capital One Visa Credit Card

Capital One are the biggest providers of unsecured credit cards in the UK for those with poor or bad credit and/or those who wish to build or rebuild their credit history. Credit limits for these credit cards start at £200 but provided you use your card regularly and keep within your limit then this can be increased. What's important, though, is that they report your, hopefully, good credit history to the credit reference agencies (both Experian and Equifax) on a monthly basis. We definitely know of one client who has used this credit card to build an empty (though clean) credit history from scratch.

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Vanquis Bank

Vanquis Visa Credit Card

You may not have heard of the Vanquis credit card. The parent company is the International financial group, Provident Financial. Their Visa credit cards are specifically designed for those who may have been turned down for credit elsewhere (i.e. have some form of bad credit).

You can contact them at: Vanquis Bank Limited, Colonnade, Sunbridge Road, Bradford, BD1 2LQ, West Yorks. Their customer service address is: Vanquis Card, Customer Service, P.O. Box 399, Chatham ME4 4WQ. Tel: 0870 850 7755

The APRs for the Vanquis Visa credit cards go up to 39.9%.

They stated on their promo leaflet that 'The best way to pay less interest is to pay off your monthly balance in full whenever you can'. With interest rates approaching 40%, this is certainly good advice.

One of the best cards to apply for if you have had credit problems in the past. If you need to know which credit reference agencies Vanquis use you can call them on 0870 850 7755.

The Vanquis credit card you need is the Vanquis Visa card.

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Click on above Vanquis Visa card image

Provident Personal Credit Visa Card

Provident Visa Debit Card

Cards are available in values of £300.

Allows you to spend your Provident Loan anywhere you see

the Visa sign.

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Click on above Provident Visa card image

Sav Credit Limited

aqua Mastercard Credit Card

This is an unsecured Mastercard credit card you may never have heard of. It is designed for those with some form of adverse credit. The company offering this credit card is called Sav Credit Limited. The card issuer is the Halifax.

This unsecured Mastercard credit card may be worth applying for if you have a UK bank account, are in full-time employment, have a landline telephone number, are on the Electoral Register, have no new adverse credit in the last 12 months and are not an undischarged bankrupt or do not have an IVA. The typical APR is 35.9%.

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Click on above aqua Mastercard card image

Monument (formerly Providian) Visa Credit Card

Monument used to be called Providian. They were owned by Barclays but the sub-prime part of the business was sold to CompuCredit in 2007.

No website at present. Write to them at Monument, PO Box 6476, Northampton NN4 1ZN (Customer Services) and ask for an application form/pack. From recent information we received it looks as though you may now need to be invited to apply for this card.

The last time we obtained information about their Premium Visa poor credit history credit card it no longer had an annual fee but still had an APR of up to 35.3% and is definitely designed for those with some adverse credit history.

They reported your good or bad credit card account history to Experian. A client of ours who applied for a Visa credit card with this company did have to wait almost 2 months to receive their card, though!

Beneficial Mastercard (HFC Bank (part of HSBC group))

Mastercard Credit Card

According to the last information pack we obtained, this Mastercard from HFC Bank is 'designed for those who do not fit the usual customer profile of a typical mainstream credit card issuer'. i.e. they will accept some bad credit. The high typical APR of 25.9% reflects the greater risk the lender is taking with this credit card.

Barclaycard

Visa Credit Card

Although not specifically for those with bad credit, this very well known company seem to specialise in credit cards for people with little clean positive credit history. Having just looked at their APRs, they do go as high as 27.9% (27.9% for cash advances) which indicates that they are prepared to take on customers with some form of poor (or little) credit. They tend to be overlooked by many people but are one of the easiest credit cards to obtain! We know of one client who although was employed, wasn't even on the electoral register and had no credit history at all (no good or bad credit) but still managed to obtain both Mastercard & Visa credit cards from them, both with relatively high credit limits.

The credit card you need to apply for at this present time is their Barclaycard Initial. It takes about 3 weeks to receive a credit card if successful. They report your good or bad credit card account history to Experian.
 

MBNA

Visa Credit Card

This card is interesting. Available as a credit card in it's own name, this massive American company also provide the credit cards for Alliance & Leicester and Abbey National customers plus many of the affinity credit cards that you now see. Like the Barclaycard above, although not specifically a credit card for those with a poor credit history, we have reports of people obtaining these credit cards with high limits with very little positive credit history. There have also been reports of people obtaining these credit cards on a purely spurious basis, even if their credit card application was unsuitable (poor credit / low credit score). From our research it also appears that MBNA will allow you to carry as many of their credit cards as you are prepared to apply for, irrespective of the total credit available on these credit cards in relation to your income. They report your good or bad credit card account history to Experian.

Also a recent visitor to the website says that: "The Egg credit card is also easy to obtain. As with a number of credit cards, the initial application is declined, but on appeal (usually by phone) the vast majority of times they overturn their decision and give you a credit card, albeit with a lower credit limit".

We have also received a report of one customer receiving an Egg card with absolutely no (good or bad) credit history.

Accucard & Morethan no longer offer credit cards.

The Universa Mastercard from Style Financial Services no longer appears to be available.

Also Citicards (formerly the Associates) no longer appear to be offering a bad credit history card.

We also have reports of people receiving many of these bad credit history credit cards without actually being on the electoral register but simply being able to prove their identity.

(ii) Secured Credit Cards

     These credit cards work just like regular credit cards, except that you must surrender a

     deposit to the credit card issuer before they will issue you with a credit card. This 'secured'

     deposit is there simply to remove all risk from the credit card issuer should you default on

     any repayment. You cannot touch these deposited funds while your credit card account is

     open. Credit card limits are set at a percentage of the deposit, sometimes up to 100% of

     the amount deposited.

     In the US there are literally dozens of secured credit cards. However, the fees and charges

     for these secured credit cards can be astronomical. Unfortunately, as these cards require

     you to have a US address plus US Social Security number then they are not available to UK

     residents.

     There are no longer any secured cards issued by a UK credit card issuer (Capital One used

     to do one) but there are also some offshore / European secured credit card options for UK

     and International customers. Take a look at our secured credit card page where you will

     find some of the secured credit cards that are available to such people.

(iii) Prepaid Debit / Credit Cards

      If none of the above poor history UK unsecured credit cards are available to you and you

      are unwilling or unable to provide a security deposit to an offshore or non-UK bank but

      you still need a credit / debit card account then the only solution open to you is the

      prepaid credit card.

      These credit / debit card accounts are specifically designed for those who have bad credit

      and cannot get (or do not want) a Visa or Mastercard credit card account from anywhere

      else or who need a low risk Internet or private second credit card account. See our

      prepaid credit card page for details about this type of non-status credit / debit card

      account plus a list of some of the International prepaid credit / debit card accounts that

      are available to those in the UK, Europe and Internationally.