NYCB Secured Card

NYCB Secured Card Review

Secured credit cards are designed for boosting credit scores (and often little else), and the Secured Visa from New York Community Bank certainly fits that mold. The card is a no-frills secured card that offers little more than the lifeline a person needs to establish or repair their credit.

Flexible Credit Limits

The NYCB Secured Card, like all secured credit cards, requires a safety deposit to act as collateral. This deposit also serves as the credit limit. NYCB deposits can start as low as $300 up to $5,000 but must be in increments of $50.

Certificate savings deposit accounts, as they are known, are not held by New York Community Bank, but rather through First National Bank of Omaha (First Bankcard), the issuer of all NYCB credit cards. Money deposited in the account doesn’t earn interest, though this isn’t uncommon with secured cards.

A Light at the End of the Tunnel

Secured credit cards usually offer little more than a chance to rebuild credit. The problem with this approach is that cardholders can become disillusioned that they’ll never progress to an unsecured card.

New York Community Bancorp (the NYCB family of banks, which includes other banks, such as Garden State Community Bank, Queens County Savings Bank, AmTrust, and others) understands these worries and provides a clear roadmap for cardholders to follow. NYCB Secured Cardholders can advance to an unsecured card and have their deposit refunded in as little as eleven months. All that needs doing is for the account holder to make on0-time regular payments and demonstrate financial responsibility. Obviously, this graduation depends on an assessment of the creditworthiness of each individual, but it is a light at the end of the tunnel, nonetheless.

Related Article: What Are the Easiest Credit Cards for Bad Credit to Get?

Before even graduating to an unsecured card, NYCB offers the chance at a credit limit increase in as few as seven months. Credit limit increases, like deposit refunds, vary based on individual cases and a history of on-time payments. The good part, however, is that no additional deposit is required, meaning cardholders can take their first step from secured to unsecured – without losing their safety net.

A High Fixed-Rate APR

The NYCB Secured Card features a fixed interest rate in the mid-20s, which is pretty high – even for a secured card. Fortunately, part of building credit is making on-time payments, so the APR shouldn’t pose a threat to anyone determined to raise their score.

Should You Apply for the NYCB Secured Visa?

Secured cards are pretty much all the same (with the exceptions of the few rewards secured cards out there, like the Discover It Secured). These outliers aside, usually picking a secured card is as simple as sticking with your local bank or credit union. In these cases, it’s the end goal that is important, rather than the card perks.

NYCB understands this fact, and its NYCB Secured Card is designed to give hope to those rebuilding their credit. With every on-time payment and positive habit gained, cardholders move a step closer to a credit line increase without the need for an additional deposit, or even better, their deposit returned and the card upgraded to the NYCB Platinum Edition.

Using the card responsibly and monitoring your FICO credit score can help you graduate from a card for bad credit to a rewards card or low APR credit card in the future.

If you are looking for a card with a lower rate, the First Progress Platinum Prestige Mastercard® is another excellent secured card to consider. Otherwise, secured cards are all about pulling up your bootstraps and doing the work needed to get to where you want to be – and the NYCB Secured Card does this very well.

For more information on secured credit cards, visit our Comprehensive Secured Card Reference Page, featuring the best-secured card offers, detailed advice, and tips to help you build your credit history.