How Do I work out the interest on my standard balance?

emeraldqueen

Can anyone advise me how i work out interest charged on my standard balance (1.805%) on my classic barclaycard?

Balance = xxxxxxxxxxx
Purchase Annual Rate = 23.9%
Cash Annual Rate = 27.9%

Many thanks.

CLAPTON

The interest shown on your lastest statement is based on the daily balance of your account from the previous statement date to the latest statement date.

Consumerist

emeraldqueen wrote: »

Can anyone advise me how i work out interest charged on my standard balance (1.805%) on my classic barclaycard?

I use a spreadsheet program.

You will need to record the amount and date of each transaction over the previous month and calculate the interest accrued on a daily basis up to the statement date. (The 1.805% is just an average monthly percentage so you will need to use the annual rate in your spreadsheet.)

You will need to know how much of your total balance is in each transaction category.

To do the job, you will need all your statements going back to your first cash transaction since you last paid off your balace in full. I accept that this may be a tall order so I would suggest that you contact your card provider and ask them to give you a breakdown of the balance in your latest statement (cash, purchases, . . . etc). It is my understanding that banks are obliged to give you sufficient information to enable you to calculate interest and charges for yourself. (They are under no obligation, however, to show you how to do it.)

Because lower-interest balances are normally paid off first, cash transaction may have been sitting undiminished within your balance since the day(s) you made them. Unless you have kept your statements, you will have no way of knowing.

Once you have the information from your card provider, keep a record of it for future reference and also keep your monthly statements going forward.

Hope this helps.
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emeraldqueen

Thank you for your help. much appreciated.

Consumerist

When I said, above, that cash balances may remain undeminished within your statement balance, I should have said that, in fact, they may be relentlessly growing at the rate of 27.9% each year in your case. In due course they could grow to the point that they represent most of the balance.

As a general rule, you should avoid mixing cash and purchases on a credit card except as a very last resort.

If you must have cash on a credit card, it would be better to put all your cash transactions on another card which you reserve entirely for cash transactions. In this way you are able to repay these higher-rate balances without having to pay off the entire balance.
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