Credit card for foreigners?

MrChips

Hello,

My girlfriend is not British but has been living here since August 2005, and was a student here for a year back in 2001. She is intending to live in the UK indefinitely, and has a visa which expires in August 2006, but which she then has the option to renew (which she will take up). After this she doesn't have to renew it for a further 4 years upon which she should be given "indefinite leave to remain" (unless they move the goalposts again!).

She wants to build up her credit history after having a lot of hassle recently just trying to get a mobile phone. We both agree that one of the best ways to do this is for her to get a credit card and to use it sensibly (she doesn't really want one, but is prepared to get one and use it occasionally and set up a DD to pay it off monthly). She lived with a British friend for the first few months she was here while she looked for a job. Since the she has lived at the same (rented) accommodation from January which is also when she started work.

I know a little about credit scoring (stoozing being a hobby) but appreciate there are some of you guys out there who will know far more.

Perhaps predictably she has had no success so far. She applied for and was rejected for a Morgan Stanley card. A month later she tried to get a Debenhams store card (I thought this might be easier!) but again no luck. She has had a NatWest current account since she was a student here in 2001 - I went into a branch this lunch time to ask whether they would accept her having "known" her for five years and the lady said it was unlikely but she was welcome to try. I am reluctant to use up another credit check on this if the chance of acceptance is slim.

Any good ideas? Would she have more chance with a very high APR card like Vanquis (I assume they are less fussy)? She isn't on the electoral role of course being non-EU - will this make it impossible to get a card? Is there a good way of building up a credit history that doesn't involve credit cards?

Ideas welcome - and before someone asks (having read a few recent threads) yes she can speak english so this definitely isn't the problem

jonesMUFCforever

Most banks will not lend to overseas people until they have been in UK for at least 3 years.It will also help her case if she is on voters roll.

crawley_girl

My friend is Spanish and has lived in the UK constantly for the past 2 years. He has dribbed in and out of the country for the 5 years prior to that. He has had a Natwest current account for all of that time and was offered a Natwest credit card with a limit of £400 and not being on the electoral register. He had the card for approximately a year and then applied for another card (sorry - can't remember which one) and got it.

I don't want to say that Natwest will give your gf a card or that they won't but this is my (second hand) experience of Natwest and credit cards.

Hope she gets one

:heartpuls CG :heartpuls

Firsttimebuyer_4

Hi,

I'm a non-eu resident in the UK and have been since 1999 and I have now succesfully applied for and got low rate loans etc. Are you ready? Ok, here's my story:

Summer 1999 - Came to the UK as a student in a London University. Opened a student account with Barclays Bank. They required a passport, a million different questions was asked but i got it in the end.

Autumn 1999 - Needed a mobile phone but no one wanted to give me a monthly contract as i had no history. O2 had an option where i could pay a years charges up front which i could go for. Expensive...yes (it was back then) but I was now on the credit scoring lists. I still had to pay my monthly call charges but it gave me a nice 0 0 0 0 line in my credit file.

2000 - I've had the Barclays account for about a year when i asked for an interest free overdraft which they gave me (i was quite surprised as they normally dont give those to nonuk students) of a whopping £1800.

1999 - 2002 - These were my student years so i kept on doing what i did bestt...studying without worrying too much about money and spending all of my overdraft. I did some work during the summer holidays to get experience and some desperatly needed money. I had to get a National Insurance number!! That is a flipping pain in the backside. I'm fron a non-eu country but i was still allowed to work here (i'm from Norway). But it took 6 months to get this number and numerous trips to the social security office where someone with a very broken english asked me a million questions about my background etc. (even though i'm legally entitled to work here)


Summer 2002 - Graduated. My intention was to move back to my "own" country but I met a UK girl during my university life so moved in with her. Now I had to try get a job!!! Since I was with Barclays and they had a Graduate Gold Credit card i applied for one of those (18% interest) as i needed money and had no job. I got it!! Only £900 limit butI was very surprised that i got it. Then again i've never gone over my overdraft limit and always had money going in to the account from my own home country bank account. So again, another thing that went on my credit history and more 0 0 0 0 lines in my file.

November 2002 - I got a job! (you have no idea how hard it is to be foreign and apply for jobs in this country, so many prejudges!! I'll never forget the recruiment agent who said "I don't know how you do things in Norway so i'm not going register you for this job". Fair enough if i did not have the skills but that comment made me really angry. ) Not paid that well but still it was a start.
I needed a car to get me to work so i used my Credit card to buy a very old and worn Ford Sierra for £500. Bargain!....not. 6 months later I asked my bank for graduate loan, was turned down, applied for a number of other loans with banks, all turned down. I went to a ford dealer to try my luck there. And guess what? I got a loan for £3000 at %18.9 with Blackhorse (lloyds). Very high inerest but it was all i could get. I had to pay the rest in cash but that was fine. So i now had a 3 year old Ford Escort to drive around in. Not my ideal car but that was the only way to get a car that would be fairly reliable. And....another thing to go on my credit file. More 0 0 0 0.

2003 - I decided it was time to apply for another loan as the %18.9 on my car loan was fairly high. I tried a graduate loan with barclays again and this time I GOT IT %8.9. Not bad at all i thought. So i took a loan out for £5000 to pay of my overdraft and credit card as well.

2004 - I applied for and succesfully got a credit card with Capital One and Egg. limits £2000 and £1500. More things on my credit history. Capital one had a interest of %12.9 and Egg i think was %12.9 as well.

2005 - I've now got a couple of promotions in my job and also earning almost double of what i had 2 years ago. Not that i had any more money as it seemed to dissapear equally fast. I guess my lifestyle changed. I wanted a new car as the Ford I had was getting old and with high mileage etc. Up to now I have never been on the Electoral Roll as I am not entitled to vote. SO...It IS possible to get a loan etc without being on the Electoral Roll. I am living proof of that. I wanted to apply for a fairly high loan so wanted to make sure I had all in order. I sent a notice of correction to the credit agencies (experian and equifax) and asked them to add the following in the Electoral Roll section:

"I am of Norwegian Nationality and not eligble to vote in the UK. As a result my name will not be recorded on the Electoral Roll. I can provide proof of nationality and residency upon request".

I then applied for a £14000 loan with Natwest at %6.9. And I got it. It was a painstaking process. i had to send them my passport, letter from employer etc etc, but I got it in the end at the typical %6.9. I repaid my barclays graduate loan with this loan and also got a new car.

I also applied for a Coop Credit card as it had a lower apr at %8.9. I got that too.

December 2005 - Left job due to personal circumstances (job situation, wanting to move closer to partners family and our mutual friends plus a list of other factors that i wont bore you with) so had to leave current job and look for new one. This costs money so i've racked up quite a lot of credit card bills. I got a new job closer to where we wanted to move to fairly short afterwards but it didnt start straight away. Also got a high interest loan of £4000 with Barclays (via their preapproved internet loan system) %13.9. But i needed money as i had maxed my Credit Cards.

February 2006 - Starting my new job!! A good paid one too, substantially more than i had. I had quite high credit card bills by now so applied for an AMEX card @ %8.9. The key here was the %4.9 life balance transfer. They gave me a whopping £5100 limit so i transferred all my credit card debt to that card. I did not tell them i had just started a new job!

March 2006 - Still paying over the odds for my barclays loan i applied for a flexible egg loan @ %6.9. I even told them i started my new job 1 month ago. I had to go through 30 minutes of interrogation with the underwriter but i think we had a laugh during the conversation too so i got it in the end. I couldnt believe my luck. So I paid off my Barclayloand.

And now i believe i've got almost as good a deal i can get.

%6.9 Egg loan
%6.9 Natwest loan
%4.9 Life of balance with Egg.

I got the following credit cards:
Barclaycard - £2900 %12.9 I never use it other than when they have promotional offers.
Capital one - £2000 - I am closing this one as we speak. %12.9 is too high
Egg card - £1500- I'm closing this one too as we speak. %12.9 is too high
Coop - £3000 - %8.9 on this one. I use this for everyday spending as my wages go straight into my high interest savings account. I then pay it all off end of the month
AMEX - £5100 - %8.9 I've got £4000 life of balance on this one at %4.9. I do NOT use the card. it is well hidden.

Thats my story. As you can see it is fully possible to be succesful in getting loans etc in the UK as a non-eu foreigner. But it takes effort and you got to know the system and play the system. Now i'm ok off finacially (got debts but they are fully manageable) and I got a job I love. Can't be better. Just wanting a mortgage now, but have to wait until we got a deposit in place.

I realise this has been a very loooong post but hopefully of use to someone. (please thank me ) There are probably bits and pieces i've left out but it is more or less my complete UK financial history

Pay your bills on time and you'll be fine!

MrChips

Wow, thanks ever so much for going to all that trouble - I can see so many parallells. I am half norwegian myself. Tusen takk min venn

I will send my girlfriend a link to this answer and suggest she follows some of your ideas. Especially the idea of adding a note to her experian file. Seems slightly harsh to be disadvantaged for not being on an electoral role which you aren't eligible to be on! My mother can't vote either, but she has plenty of cards, maybe I should have asked her first for her secret - but she is on holiday in Norway at the moment

And my girlfriend has also been turned down for countless interviews - she is extremely well qualified with perfect english and degrees/masters from 3 countries so after a while you have to begin to suspect that they hear an accent and see that you need a work permit and prejudice kicks in.....but that is a story for a different thread! But she finally has her national insurance card so that's a start (although I just found out that although she has to pay national insurance, she isn't actually entitled to any social security benefits!!!). She has also had lame excuses like yours for being turned down

AzimScot

My wife who is on a spouse visa got a basic bank account with the bank of scotland and we struggled to prove an address as we are living with parents the national insurance letter addressed to my wife passed.

jonesMUFCforever

Why are you putting this on a 3 year old posting?

AzimScot

because I done a search and found this helpful is this not allowed?

jonesMUFCforever

Better to start a new thread.

EarthBoy

The danger of reviving old threads is that the information in them may be out of date. Legislation, bank rules, charges, practices etc all change over time. What was the case in 2006 may be totally incorrect or irrelevant now.