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The Pros And Cons Of Prepaid Credit Cards (Page 1 of 3)
Observers in the lending industry have estimated that there may be at least 50 million Americans who are not able to qualify for credit. These consumers are usually young, often members of the minority groups and unbanked
and they are faced with the long-standing dilemma of credit: how can I build my credit record if no one will give me any credit at all?
One of the answers offered by credit card companies is a variety of prepaid credit cards, designed for use by specific segments in the market. The prepaid credit cards are meant for that significant portion of the population that cannot meet the qualification criteria for regular credit cards, or who qualified before but have since lost their credit due to repeated defaults and other reasons.
Advantages of Prepaid Credit Cards For those who do not have enough credit history or have had it blemished, prepaid credit cards are an effective way to build or slowly rebuild credit. That may not happen immediately, but it is something to work on over time. The banks that issue prepaid credit cards are also prepared to extend normal credit the moment you are able to show that you have become a worthy credit risk.
For the moment, you may have to make do with prepaid credit cards. You can use prepaid credit cards as you would any other regular credit card to purchase airline tickets, reserve hotel rooms, or order items online.
Prepaid Credit Card for Students
There is a special prepaid Visa credit card for students, which offers a lot of convenience not only for the students but also for their parents. These reloadable prepaid credit cards offer parents several options on how to reload. Parents can add money to reloadable prepaid credit cards by depositing money, by arranging an automatic transfer of funds from their account (a deposit account or their own credit card account), or by online transfer. Using the prepaid Visa credit card is no different from giving the regular allowance to their child, only they do so by electronic means and there is no more cash that changes hands.
The big advantage of the prepaid Visa credit card is that the student is limited to spend only as much money as there is in the card. The parent is thus able to control to some extent the spending behavior of their child. They can use the prepaid credit card anywhere that the credit card brand is accepted.
Prepaid Credit Cards as Gift Certificates Some prepaid credit cards function like gift certificates. You buy the prepaid credit card for a certain amount, and your recipient can purchase items with it at any of the brick-and-mortar stores or online merchants, and also for mail order items, that accept the particular credit card brand. Your recipient can use the prepaid credit card only up to the amount of money that you loaded on it. This particular version of prepaid credit cards is non-reloadable.
Like any gift certificate, recipients of prepaid credit cards can buy whatever it is they want at any time they want. Unlike a gift certificate that, when it gets lost is lost forever to the recipient, prepaid credit cards may be replaced if it gets lost or is stolen.
Are Payday Loans Good or Bad?
When it comes to Payday Loans there is divided opinion on whether they are a good thing or a bad thing. But why are they perceived by some as a bad way of worrying? To look at this we first need to look at exactly what are Payday Loans?
The clue is in the name. They are a short-term loan designed to paid back on the borrowers next Payday. Therefore, the loan is designed only to be borrowed over a few days or at a maximum of a few weeks.
The key with any borrowing that is taken out is that the borrower is always keen to know the APR. This is understandable and this is why Payday Loans are sometimes criticised. The APR on a Payday Loan is high very high. However, the key with a Payday Loan is remembering that you borrow the loan only over a matter of days. APR stands for Annual Percentage Rate so is therefore a percentage rate over a year. It is therefore deemed a little unfair to judge a payday loan over a year as nobody would borrow the loan over that length of time.
It is common knowledge that if you were to borrow an unsecured loan over a few years you can expect to pay back sometimes double of what you initially borrow especially if the length of time the loan is taken over is a few years. So how does this compare into the Payday Loan world?
It is hard to give a specific figure on the amount of interest you will pay on a payday loan as there are many lenders that have different rates. It would not be unfair to say that you may pay back £30 of interest for every £100 borrowed. So, a £300 loan would cost you a total of £390. This would be at an APR of 2000%+ Sounds high? Well, remember the APR is if the loan was borrowed over a year but you will only borrow it for a few days/ weeks.
On the above Payday Loan model you are paying about 1/3 of the amount borrowed in interest. How would this compare to a £5,000 unsecured loan borrowed over 7 years? A 1/3 more of the amount borrowed would be a total payback of about £6,650. This could be achieved at a monthly payment of around £98. So the APR would be similar as the Payday Loan? No. The APR on this example would be about 12.4%.
I hope the above example highlights the “APR argument” when it comes to Payday Loans. You can pay the same split of interest on a Payday Loan as an Unsecured Loan and the APR is massively different the sole reason for this is that a Payday Loan will only be paid back over a matter of days.
Do Payday Loans deserve their bad reputation? Probably not. If they are used correctly, as a short-term financial product instead of a long-term financial solution, and they are paid back on time then they are an excellent form of short-term borrowing in an emergency.