Snowy560

I had similar: maybe a $1,000 but they made it clear I was eligible for more after a short period (could have been a year, I can't remember).


S

scrubbedexpat133

Scotiabank are good and they have various things for newcomers.

Breath of fresh air having banked with Lloyds The Shithouse Bank in the UK.

Pulaski

They flogged off the TSB name a year or two back.

bc2015

My first card was with BMO and was secured. Took about 2 weeks to be processed. After a few months, I applied for an AmEx card and was approved and it wasn't secured. Of course, not many places take AmEx so I applied for a VanCity card and got that too (not secured).

Snowy560

What does "secured" mean?

Thanks!

S

cxx

Not sure it's good business to encourage people to borrow more than they can afford to pay back, and I've heard about a couple of bankruptcies and foreclosures recently so things don't look good.

bc2015

It means if you have a checking account with the same bank, they will place a hold on funds in the checking account to the amount of the limit on the card. If you don't have a checking account with them, then you pay a deposit equal to the amount of the limit on the card.

The handy thing about the first option is that it usually counts towards the balance required for free banking too, so if you have enough cash for that then the hold on the funds is not really an issue.

Engineer_abroad

So wait, you give them your money which they lend back to you with interest? What's the point of the credit card? Mine from RBC must be unsecured.

bc2015

It's only interest if you carry a balance. And it's necessary to build credit rating in Canada and we've done pretty well out of the Airmiles rewards program (got a $750 coffee machine for Airmiles).

scrubbedexpat091

It might be the only way to obtain credit so you can build credit, there are various reasons why someone may not be able to get an unsecured card, such as new arrival with no credit history, student, low income etc.

I've been in Canada 10 years, but due to being low income, no bank will supply an unsecured card, so secured is my only option so I can have some credit history, and well you need a credit card to rent a car, most hotels require one, and it's hard these days not having one since so many places wan't one, and car rental or hotels for example won't generally accept pre-paid cards.

Pulaski

It's for people who are a perceived bad credit risk - think of it as a credit card with training wheels. Usually after a few months or a year of you mangaging you secured credit card responsibly, you can move up to a regular credit card.

Part of the decision by the bank to only offer a "secured" card appears to be purely income driven - if you have a good job with a healthy salary paid into your bank account, you shouldn't have trouble getting a credit card (and you may be unaware of the "secured credit card" product). If you have a lower income job you're likely to have to go with a secured credit card for a while before you're trusted with a "proper" credit card.

Siouxie

I think it's more that you are an 'unknown' credit risk, rather than necessarily a bad credit risk.

As a new PR or TWP, unless you have an equifax report or are introduced to the bank by a current customer it's likely that you will be offered a secured credit card rather than a normal one.

I was working, had my salary paid into my account but couldn't show proof of credit history, hence the secured card. With my son - PR - and his friend, here on an IEC later, I introduced them to the bank and they lucked out by having a different Client Services Manager who was very helpful. Neither of them had jobs at the time either!

A lot of the time it's down to who you see!

Pulaski

Agreed. From the banks' perspective, anyone who is an "unknown credit risk" is perceived as a bad credit risk. It's not "fair", but the banks' are always the dealers in the game.

scrubbedexpat091

And income, banks don't generally like low income people....Exceptions of course, but this is my experience, unless it's for a car and they have something they can take away, then they are more likely, but unsecured loans, banks don't like poor people.

Gazzae

Do you mean an equifax report from another country? Should I be ordering a report before I leave the UK as I have good credit here.