Credit card for non-EU citizen

milan_ns

FB13 wrote: »

I could be wrong, but I believe he is talking about longer term debt. Credit cards and an overdraft are one thing, but a mortgage is a different story. Who would want to give someone a 15 or 30 year mortgage if the person may have to leave the country in a year or two?

Actually they would loan money for home purchase, to someone who has to leave the country in 2-3 years - but now days banks require higher deposit in such cases.

For any other consumer credit (cards, unsecured loan, hp, overdraft, ...) immigration status is not relevant (that is what my experience says anyway).

That said, I do not know the inner workings of the credit provider systems and it could be that I was just "lucky".

iereboy

I don't have an EU passport.

I am on the electoral role.

I have a few credit cards and overdraft. (Never pay interest on them)

Why can't your wife go on the electoral role?

Once your wife builds up a relationship with her own bank, she may be able to get a CC with them. Try them first, then others like Capital one, Vanquis.

Some advice would be: Try to get her on the electoral role, make sure her bank account is reporting to the Credit Ref Agencies, contract phone - again reports to the CRA, more than one bank account also helps with different institutions, again they report to the CRA. This will build up lots of greens on the CRA's. Its a start...

Oh yeah and check the CRA's for free peridoically.

sizzlerman

zppp wrote: »

Um, I work for a financial institution (one of the big 4) and they do care actually. Alot of personal borrowing for major high street banks is done on the basis of the expiry of a visa etc.

hi, going to america in the summer and told i will need a credit card to hire a car even though it as already been paid for in our package. is this true i only ever use debit cards and dont really want to get something i may struggle to get because of a possiible low credit rating.

milan_ns

Ahem, as far as I know only EU passport holders can be on electoral roll.

Is it be possible that you've failed to read this on the form your council have sent you and completed it anyway?

iereboy

Ahem- I am not a EU passport holder, and I on the electoral roll.

I know a lot of non EU people and they are on the electoral roll.

AHEM

udydudy

AFAIK, to be on the electoral roll you need to be either a british citizen(obviously!!), an EU citizen or a citizen of the commonwealth country. If you are the first you can vote in any election(again obviously), if the latter two then you can only vote in the local elections, not in the national elections. Several people may be on the electoral roll despite not being eligible due to the fact that registration on the electoral roll in UK is surprisingly more of a self declaration form where in you are confirming that you fit the criteria and this is not really verified. So by not fitting the criteria and still registering and being on the electroal automatically means you are falsifying facts and are commiting an illegalact(not sure what the legal implications are if caught!!).

Again IMHO, the same applies for ALL types of lending. All forms(online or in print) have the basic minimum criteria which the applicant is self declaring. e.g. being above a certain age, being a resident(LEGAL!! and in some application it actually also says permanent resident) of the UK, etc etc. Despite this by still ticking that check box and going ahead with the application, the applicant is in fact commiting fraud and once again if caught/discovered is commiting a offence/crime.

udydudy

You can get these details from http://www.aboutmyvote.co.uk

This confirms the first part of my previous post. taken from the FAQs of teh above website.

Who can register to vote?

You can register to vote if you are:
[1]16 or over (but you cannot vote until you are 18)
[2]A UK, Republic of Ireland or qualifying Commonwealth citizen. Qualifying Commonwealth citizens are those who have leave to enter or remain in the UK, or do not require such leave.
[3]A citizen of a European Union country living in the UK
A citizen of the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man or a British Overseas Territory living in the UK

udydudy

For the second part of my first post in this thread:

Taken from the largest building society website credit card application fist page after clicking on "Apply"...
=====================================
You will need:

your home and job details
details of any loans/credit commitments
to be aged 18 or over, a permanent UK resident and registered to vote
======================================

The "permanent UK resident" is replaced by "UK resident" on quite a few credit card providers like halifax, MBNA, etc but are meant to mean the same.


The credit card companies rely on the electoral roll to take care of their obligation to check and hence if someone gets on to the electoral roll fraudulently then getting credit is not as tough as if you are legally in the country then getting a basic bank account is comparatively easy.

But the fact remains that it is based on fraudulent information in the first place.


For the original poster, you could maybe try getting a offshore bank account with banks like HSBC, Barclays or Lloyds. They would accept overseas documentary evidence to open a bank account and do not require registration on electoral roll. these accounts IMHO are not covered by FSA.

socks_uk

udydudy wrote: »

AFAIK, to be on the electoral roll you need to be either a british citizen(obviously!!), an EU citizen or a citizen of the commonwealth country. If you are the first you can vote in any election(again obviously), if the latter two then you can only vote in the local elections, not in the national elections.

Hmmm... I wonder if the 'powers that be' know this? My Canadian husband recently voted in both local and national elections. When the electoral roll fold-up letter comes I'm sure it says Canadian next to his name but I might be wrong. Without it front of me I can't be sure.

udydudy

socks_uk wrote: »

Hmmm... I wonder if the 'powers that be' know this? My Canadian husband recently voted in both local and national elections. When the electoral roll fold-up letter comes I'm sure it says Canadian next to his name but I might be wrong. Without it front of me I can't be sure.

We have been here for two national elections(this one and last) The last time we were registered non-british (commonwealth citizen) and I only got the local election cards(the ones they put through the door prior to elections). We became naturalised british last year, this year we got both after we changed our electoral roll citizenship status to british last year.

Please do check your form if you keep a copy and let us know. Maybe you left the column blank which defaults then to British. It would be interesting to know how lax and careless our electoral roll system is!!! Especially if you have clearly mentioned citizenship as Canadian.