HSBC cards aimed for consumers with poor credit may be ideal for you but you won’t find those advertise on the HSBC website. Under it’s own brand name, this lender offers the NSBC Premier World Master Card and the NSBC Platinum MasterCard.
The Premier card offers the bonus of no foreign transaction fees which is a rare benefit among major lending institutions.
In addition, the Premier card has a rewards program that adds points on purchases and a flexible rewards program that is designed to suit various lifestyles of account holders.
This card requires excellent credit and has no pre-set sending limit attached to the account.
The NSBC Platinum Master Card offers the choice of cash or fly reward programs or a non-rewards version for consumers who desire a credit card without bells and whistles.
Qualifying for the HSBC Premier credit card requires the user to have an NSBC Premier checking account that maintains a balance of $100,000 of combined personal deposit an investment balances. This is a premium card and reserved for premium consumers with high credit ratings and income.
HSBC is the backer for many other credit cards that are branded in a different way. The best known are HSBC backed credit card offered for consumer with bad credit or no credit established.
Advantages
HSBC is a newcomer to the credit lending arena. Though HSBC may be new as a credit issuing bank, it is a huge financial organization with banks in North America, Europe and Asia.
When it purchased Household Bank, HSBC became a major credit lender. Some of its best known products are the Orchard Bank Platinum MasterCard and the GM Flexible Earnings Card.
The Orchard Bank secured credit card is rapidly becoming a major player in the credit card consumer marketplace. Designed to help those with no credit begin to build a good credit file, this card is also available to people who have damaged or bad credit.
Three years of a challenged and struggling economy combined with a high rate of unemployment has led many consumers to the poor credit cards as the only option left to them to have a credit card in their wallet.
HSBC credit cards for consumers with poor credit rating offered through Orchard Bank were one of the first non-predatory secured credit cards offered to consumers. The need for credit card for poor credit can clearly be seen in the addition of secured credit cards now offered by most major lenders.
This market for credit cards for poor credit will only expand in the next few years. We don’t yet know what overall effect the economic downturn will have on credit card usage in years to come.
In one generation credit card use ballooned from a card available only to well qualified credit risks that was used for infrequent purchases to a card used for all purchases and available to almost anyone who applied.
In the race to acquire new customers, lending banks lower their standards of qualification for credit applications. Only those with truly bad credit were denied while profits of financial institutions soars with high interest rates charges and hidden fees built into credit card accounts.
This rapid expansion of credit users lost much of its profitability when the economy crashed. Faced with lack of income, the credit card bills are the first to go unpaid. Defaults began to rise and credit lenders raised their qualifiers for new accounts.
Disadvantages
The credit cards labeled as “poor” are a necessity for those consumers with bad credit who want to improve their credit rating. There are additional fees for such accounts that are not charged to those with good credit but that is to be expected.
The one drawback is that more fees can be charged by law after the first year the account is opened. Fee limits that may be charged the first year of a new credit card account are not limited in successive years.
For that reason, you should use the credit card for daily charges and pay the bill on time every month. The best way is to pay the bill in full each month.
After one years of use of this credit card, consumers often find they have improved their credit rating and can be approved for standard credit cards with lower fees.
Summary
The HSBC cards aimed for consumers with poor credit are offered through partnerships with other banks. For consumers who need to establish credit or to improve a poor credit rating, these cards offer a useful service.
