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Step Card
Step Card
At a Glance
The Step Card is a Visa debit card for teens from Evolve Bank & Trust. The card lets parents teach their kids about finances while earning rewards on eligible purchases - with no hidden fees.
- Best Benefits
- Rates & Fees
- Why Should You Apply?
- No annual fee
- Earn cash back or crypto as your build credit
- Parental controls including real-time notifications, balance tracking, merchant category blocks, mobile payments, and more
- Intuitive mobile app
- Foreign Transaction Fee: See Terms
- You have a teenager you want to whom you help provide a financial education
- You want your kids to have a good degree of financial independence
- You do't want to pay a subscription fee
Greenlight Debit Card
Greenlight Debit Card
At a Glance
The Greenlight Prepaid Mastercard is a debit card that works with the three plans that make up the Greenlight allowance and chores app. The card provides comprehensive controls for parents while teaching kids about the value of money - and hard work.
- Best Benefits
- Rates & Fees
- Why Should You Apply?
- Teach your kids about money and help them get a leg up on their financial future
- Earn money through chores, set savings goals, spend wisely, and invest
- Parental controls including real-time notifications, balance tracking, merchant category blocks, mobile payments, and more
- Set ATM cash withdrawal limits
- Annual Fee: See Terms
- You have multiple kids and want them all to have a debit card
- You want to teach your kids about investing
- You want access to comprehensive parental controls, including limiting dangerous merchants
GoHenry Card
GoHenry Card
At a Glance
The GoHenry card is a debit card created for kids and teens to start learning and taking control of their finances. Designed for both children and parents to be involved in setting goals, controlling spending, and building good habits, it also features benefits such as setting chores and managing a savings account.
- Best Benefits
- Rates & Fees
- Why Should You Apply?
- Flexible parental controls such as setting spending limits and being able to choose where the child's card is used
- Chores can be set up in-app and checked off when they're completed
- The GoHenry app offers a savings account option where savings goals can be set by cardholders and parents can lock and unlock
- Real-time updates via the app to know when, where, and how much children are spending
- All accounts are FDIC-insured with no risk of overdraft
- Minimum Deposit Required: $2.00
- You have children or teenagers and are interested in teaching them about how to manage their finances and budget effectively
- You want a card where you can control your kids' spending and allowance
- You're interested in setting up a savings account for your child with flexible goals and target dates
- You want to reward your kids for completing chores via a streamlined banking app experience
BusyKid Spend Card
BusyKid Spend Card
At a Glance
The BusyKid Spend Card is a prepaid Visa debit card that works with the BusyKid mobile app. The app provides a streamlined allowance and chore interface, with a number of cool tools for kids, including investments, charitable donations, and more, for one great low price.
- Best Benefits
- Rates & Fees
- Why Should You Apply?
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- Parental match feature encourages saving
- Great value for large families
- Easily add a co-parent with separate account.
- Kids can invest with more than 4,000 stocks
- Annual Fee: See Terms
- Foreign Transaction Fee: $2.50 per transactio
- Over Limit Penalty Fee: $.50 (starting on the fifth decline in a month)
- You have multiple children
- Financial literacy and education is important to you
- You want to provide your children with robust and independent spending tools
USAA Secured Visa® Platinum Credit Card
USAA Secured Visa® Platinum Credit Card
- 27.65% variable based on the Prime Rate Regular Purchase APR
- 27.65% variable based on the Prime Rate Balance Transfer APR
- 27.65% variable based on the Prime Rate Cash Advance APR
At a Glance
The USAA Secured Visa Platinum can help you establish a positive credit history with regular payments and responsible use. There are no foreign transactions or annual fees for members.
- Best Benefits
- Rates & Fees
- Why Should You Apply?
- No annual fee
- No foreign transaction fees
- Build credit with on time payments and responsible use
- Visa Platinum protections, including Zero Fraud Liability
- Regular Purchase APR: 27.65% variable based on the Prime Rate
- Balance Transfer APR: 27.65% variable based on the Prime Rate
- Balance Transfer Transaction Fee: 3% of the amount of each Balance Transfer.
- Cash Advance APR: 27.65% variable based on the Prime Rate
- Cash Advance Transaction Fee: 3% of the amount of each Cash Advance. Fee waived when transferring funds electronically to a USAA deposit account.
- Late Payment Penalty Fee: Up to $35
- Return Payment Penalty Fee: Up to $35
- Minimum Deposit Required: $250
- You qualify for USAA membership
- Your credit history is damaged or non-existent
- You do't want to pay an annual fee
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Does No Credit History Mean You’ve Never Had Any Credit?
Just because you don’t have a credit history does not mean you’ve never had credit. As confusing as it sounds, you can have experience with credit in the past, yet still have no credit history to FICO or VantageScore.
No credit means you have no recent credit history. Those without a past credit history (within the last seven to ten years, will find themselves lumped into the same “no credit” category as those who are entirely new to credit. So even if you have borrowed money in the past, you may have no score.
FICO, VantageScore and Credit History
Different credit scoring models have a different definition of no credit history.
FICO requires the following to establish a credit history:
- One tradeline reported within the previous six months. A tradeline is also known as a credit account.
- A tradeline at least six months old.
- Proof that the account holder is alive.
VantageScore, on the other hand, does not have as strict requirements for establishing a credit history. The VantageScore model only needs one month of credit activity to generate a credit score. This makes the scoring system popular with those who want to judge the recent credit activity of an applicant.
Regardless, if you don’t satisfy the requirements above, you might not have a credit score.
Why Credit Matters
There are approximately 45 million Americans with no credit history, according to recent statistics. With so many lacking a credit score, you might wonder why your credit score matters?
Credit influences many aspects of our daily financial and personal lives. People with excellent credit scores enjoy greater access to credit, higher credit limits, and lower interest rates. That’s because they have proven their financial responsibility and trustworthiness to lenders.
Those with poor credit, however, will struggle. Bad credit scores can impact every aspect of your life.
A poor or bad credit score can cause the following difficulties in life:
- Trouble Renting: With bad credit, you can struggle to find an apartment. Because landlords and rental agencies look at an applicant’s credit report, a bad score can indicate you are a potential risk for missing rent payments. This can lead to rejections when applying for accommodation.
- Loss of Job Opportunities: Employers can also access your credit report. While they won’t see your score, they can see past remarks on your credit report. These can make you a risk for employment, as they might deem you untrustworthy.
- Poor Credit Choices: People with bad credit struggle to find good credit products at reasonable rates.
Given the difficulties that those with poor credit experience, imagine how much more difficult it is with no credit.
Without a credit history, you will struggle to find many credit card issuers or lenders willing to take a chance on you. You likely won’t qualify for a mortgage, a personal loan, or possibly even a car loan. That’s why it is so critical to take steps to build your credit score quickly, so you can enjoy many of the benefits good credit scores offer.
How to Build Credit History
Building a credit score requires time and patience. There are, however, specific steps you can take right away to improve your score in as little as a few months.
| ① Check your credit score | The first thing you should do is check your credit score to see where you stand. You might already know your credit score is bad, but how far down on the scale, does it go? Knowing how fast you can improve your credit from “bad” to “fair” is crucial to making a financial plan of attack. |
| ② Get a credit card for subprime credit | Part of boosting your credit score is increasing your use of credit. For those with bad credit, this may seem counter-intuitive. Fortunately, there are many unsecured credit cards for poor credit and secured cards that can help you repair your credit score. |
| ③ Pay on time each month | As seen in the scoring models, payment history is the biggest factor in your credit score. Because payment history is so important, paying your credit card bill on time each month is essential to boosting sub-prime credit. Missed payments stay on a credit report for seven years. |
| ④ Keep your credit use low | Credit utilization is as important as paying on time. Credit utilization shows lenders how you use your credit. Those who keep their credit use below 30% can expect their score to improve, while those who use less than 10% can expect a much faster score rise. |
Getting Started with Credit Repair
First, you need to establish a credit history. One option is to become an authorized user. The easiest way to build credit, however, is by getting a credit card. Getting a secured card is the most straightforward route and can make the approval process much easier. That’s because secured credit cards require a security deposit when applying for a credit card.
This deposit required, which usually starts as low as $200 and runs as high as $5,000, also acts as the credit limit. Examples of popular secured cards include the Discover It Secured Card, the Secured Mastercard from Capital One, and the Citi Secured Mastercard. These cards also have no annual fee.
Once you have a secured card, you can use that card to make small purchases. Then, once you receive your statement, you pay your bill in full. A few months of this practice can provide you a decent score (if new to credit) and increase a damaged score by several points.
Building Credit Takes Time
While short term improvement is possible, establishing a good credit score can take months – or even years. That’s because both VantageScore and FICO place significant weight on payment history with their respective scoring models.
FICO scoring places significant weight on payment history, as this is the largest sign of a person’s ability to repay any new credit. Nearly as significant is the amount of available credit that individual is currently utilization, or how much of the available credit line they use. VantageScore, on the other hand, emphasizes a variety of credit, though it also prioritizes payment history.
This means that it will take time to build a history of on-time payments. With patience, however, it is a very achievable goal.
Failing to keep up with payments, however, can cause serious harm to your score. With a young credit history, one missed payment can destroy your credit score. Even worse, late or missed payments stay on a credit report for seven years, meaning the harm carries on for some time.
The Best Credit Cards for No Credit History
Just because you have no credit history doesn’t mean you can’t build one. No credit score simply means you have a blank canvas on which to begin (or return) to your credit journey. If you find yourself wondering “I have no credit score, how do I get a credit card?” don’t worry – there are still options available.
The credit card options for no credit are limited, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t great offers available. Here are some of our top credit cards for no credit score picks for this year: