Rebuilding credit with CitiBank’s Secured MasterCard
UPDATE 2012: See today’s number 1 secured credit card offer (below).
Attention: The following CitiBank secured credit card plus certificate of deposit is no longer available.
For those looking to rebuild or establish credit this year as well as open a FDIC-insured savings account, CitiBank’s new secured MasterCard + 18 month CD (certificate of deposit) offer may be just the right joint product for you so long as you haven’t encountered bankruptcy or had payments go to collections in the last two years.
Review BankVibe.com’s top credit cards for rebuilding credit in 2011.
Here is what you get:
After opening a CD account with a deposit of between $200 to $25,000, you will receive a secured credit card through CitiBank with your deposit amount as your spending limit.
Your payment records with the new card will then be reported to the three major credit bureaus. After 18 months of solid payment history, you may become eligible for an upgrade to an unsecured Citi Platinum Select credit card.
Meanwhile, you’ll be earning a competitive annual interest rate on your 18 month CD.
Build Your Credit History:
With no minimum income or co-signer required its extremely easy to qualify for this credit card. A solid block of time (18 months) is provided to rebuild credit while reporting to the three credit bureaus monthly.
Out Take:
What we particularly like about this offer is that the 18 month CD you purchase comes with an APY that is well above average (4.17% APY) and the secured card offer is simply a stepping stone to get you back to a standard credit card.
What we don’t like about the card is that Citibank is not allowing the consumers who need this product most eligibility. Requiring that the individual has never entered into bankruptcy is already cutting off a large percentage of consumers whom may need this product most, but not allowing those who have had a bill go to collections in the last two years is absurd. We wish CitBank would have been much more inclusive with this offer.
Important Credit Card statistics:
- $29 annual fee
- 13.24% APR variable credit limit
September 20th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
Rebuilding credit with CitiBank’s Secured MasterCard…
Here is what you get… You open a CD account with an amount of between $200 to $25,000 and you will then be issued a secured credit card through CitiBank with that amount as your spending limit. They report your account performance to major credit companies
March 20th, 2010 at 8:49 pm
Do not let Citibank make a fool of you like they did with me. They took my money and limited my credit limit to $2000 dollars for the first 60 days even though they had assured me I will have access to the full amount I deposited ($7500). I told them that this is not mentioned in the application or the website or even the tiny print of the terms and conditions, they told me to go screw myself and that they won’t fix this. They are the worst financial institution and have the least competent employees. Everyone I know have had problems with Citibank.
December 21st, 2010 at 6:38 am
The CITI secured Mastercard website specifically states 1% interest since February 2010. If they have a 4.17% APY as you state above it is not listed on their website and you need to clarify your printed article’s validity.
In addition, I pulled up the terms and conditions of the offer. The application states in paragraph three that “You must not have any bankruptcy history, write off history or account in collections within the last two years.” This statement would disqualify the majority if not all of the applicants trying to rebuild their credit.
Good journalism requires thorough research.
December 22nd, 2010 at 10:03 am
T.Wallner – Thanks for updating us on the terms and conditions of this account offer.
Please refer to the date of this article for accuracy. As you should have been able to see it went live over 1 year ago. Bank rates in general are extremely time sensitive in nature and can change on a daily basis, the information you have gathered on this post was from September of 2009 (and was 100% accurate at that time). For updated rates and account offers visit our CD rates or credit card pages found in the tab menu above.
January 13th, 2011 at 4:03 am
[...] sure the creditor reports to all 3 major credit bureaus. Most major secured credit cards (i.e. a citibank secured credit card, chase secured credit card, etc.) report to these 3 bureaus. If your new card doesn’t, you [...]