minimum payment marker

chattychappy

zerog wrote: »

Yes do you get your report online? Tesco doesn't seem to be reporting min payments on my paper report - I've just opened the card so haven't made any payments yet, but there isn't any field for that, only promo rate, cash advances, etc.

Yes I got them online, though I've recently discontinued the subscription.

Anthorn

I have Equifax mainly for alerts but just got the report and there's a lot of new fields on credit card accounts I haven't seen before: Previous statement balance; number of cash advances during month; minimum payment; payment amount; cash advance amount; credit limit change; promotional rate

Monthly fields are Status, credit limit, statement balance and payment amount, probably the same as before.

guesswho2000

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

How can it? Not every "promotional rate" is 0%.

Indeed, I had it for ages whilst I had a Barclaycard 6.9% for life balance; had the 'M' flag a couple of times in the past when it was more prudent to make a minimum payment than repay the debt (I was unaware about the M flag itself then), but much like cash withdrawals on a CC, my opinion is that they have almost no impact unless you're showing signs of debt stress elsewhere.

Anthorn

stclair wrote: »

Im not sure if reports differ from the paper format to the online one.

However the online one now looks like as shown below.

Where the "M" is shown next to the payment code means they have only paid the minimum payment.



However not all lenders report the full information.

In that case I would never get a marker because (touch wood) I never only make the minimum payment.

rb10

guesswho2000 wrote: »

Indeed, I had it for ages whilst I had a Barclaycard 6.9% for life balance; had the 'M' flag a couple of times in the past when it was more prudent to make a minimum payment than repay the debt (I was unaware about the M flag itself then), but much like cash withdrawals on a CC, my opinion is that they have almost no impact unless you're showing signs of debt stress elsewhere.

This is largely correct.

There are certain principles upon which the sharing of credit data is based. All banks and CRAs agree to stick to these principles when they provide data, receive data, and process this data. These principles make it clear that banks are to only use the minimum payment marker as one possible indication of debt stress.

Indeed, the promotional rate marker exists because the relevant steering committee (formed of various people from the industry) identifies the fact that many 'rate tarts' will only need to pay the minimum. Banks are supposed to use these two markers in combination (i.e. minimum payments plus promotional rate does not imply that someone is having difficulty making payments).

Cash advances are slightly different. As far as I am aware, there is nothing in these principles that prevents banks from using the presence of cash advances as anything other than a negative sign. [My position on this is that occasional cash advances, e.g. whilst abroad on a Halifax Clarity or Santander Zero card, are fine, but that regular cash advances would be damaging.]

chattychappy

rb10 wrote: »

[My position on this is that occasional cash advances, e.g. whilst abroad on a Halifax Clarity or Santander Zero card, are fine, but that regular cash advances would be damaging.]

Agree. But a lender looking at the record would neither know that you were abroad or which card you were using.