Interest Rates & Features:  

The annual percentage rate for interest charged on First PREMIER Bank secured cards is 19.9% for both purchases and cash advances. That’s on the high side of the cards in this category but optimal handling of the card can make that a largely irrelevant issue. Paying interest on purchases can be avoided entirely if the entire account balance is paid in full every month. That’s because of the 25-day grace period for purchases. Given that the primary reason for getting this kind of card is to improve one’s credit rating, that sort of behavior should be a given. These cards can be particularly valuable for those who promise themselves to never let the balance build up and stick to the promise. Letting a month go by without paying off the card balance effectively eliminates the benefit of the grace period until the balance is paid in full.

The grace period that applies to purchases doesn’t apply to cash advances which can make them very expensive because interest accrues from the day of the transaction. We consider that a predicament to be avoided if at all possible, especially given that the advance is being secured by your deposit which doesn’t earn interest at all. If cash advances can’t be avoided altogether, it’s best to limit them and to pay them off as quickly as possible. There’s no need to wait for the monthly bill to arrive, complete with its daily mounting of interest charges, since the balance can be paid online at any time.

Other Fees:  

Like all other credit cards for bad credit, the cards from First PREMIER Bank come with an array of charges. One that can’t be avoided is the $69.00 annual fee which is charged upon activation of the card. That fee is pretty typical this category of credit card with some being a little higher and others being a bit less. The fee for taking a cash advance is 3% of the amount of the advance. The minimum fee is $5.00 and the maximum is $10.00.

Of the fees that can and should be avoided are the $29.00 charges that apply to both late payments and to incidents of exceeding the card’s credit limit. Proper use of the cards will prevent these charges from ever occurring.

First PREMIER Bank charges a onetime fee of $3.95 for accessing the account online. Though it’s a rather small charge and isn’t repeated after online account access has initially been established, we see it as simply an effort to pad profits by charging a premium for a service that should be standard.

Credit Limits:  

Typical of other secured credit cards, the customer essentially sets the credit limit for the First PREMIER Bank secured MasterCard and Visa. The minimum deposit, and therefore minimum credit limit is $200. The maximum is set at $5,000. These figures vary very little across the board for secured credit cards.

A rather odd feature of First PREMIER Bank’s cards is that cash advances are limited to 10% of the collateral deposit during the first 90 days that the account is open. After 90 days of satisfactory performance, the cash advance limit can be raised to 50% of the deposited amount. It’s customary for cash advances to be a portion of the total available credit but 10% of the total seems unnecessarily restrictive, especially given that the full amount is guaranteed by a customer’s deposit.

Features:  

The First PREMIER Bank secured Visa and MasterCard offer all of the expected features of a basic credit card. They can be used to make purchases at most merchants in person, online or via phone orders. The same limited liability that the law requires for other credit cards extends to credit cards for bad credit with a legally mandated $50 maximum liability for unauthorized charges. These cards waive even that minimal charge provided that the creditor is notified within a reasonable amount of time following discovery of loss, theft or other unauthorized use of the card.

Help & Support:  

The main vehicle for customer service for the First PREMIER Bank credit cards is via online account management. Customer service is also available via toll-free telephone and email.

First PREMIER Bank Secured Visa and MasterCards are very typical of a lot of the cards featured in this evaluation of credit cards for bad credit. They can be a very valuable resource for building a good credit record or a tool for repairing a credit history that has sustained damage. To see how they stack up against the top rated reviews in our survey, take a look at the reviews of the cards from Applied Bank and the UltraVX Visa.