Interest on balance transfer fee

fruitdogs

Hi,
Just noticed small interest charges on my 0% balance transfer fee with Nat West. If you don't pay the transfer fee upfront you get charged 3mths interest on it! I asked the lady where this was written in the paperwork. "Oh it's not written anywhere, you will have been told when you called about the offer". Has anybody else come across this one? I've had several transfers over the years and never paid interest.

Rosco32

All the balances transfers I've done I've never been charged interest on the balance transfer fee, ever. I did a BT to Tesco in July last year. They took on the balance from MBNA/Virgin and added to BT fee and that was it. There has never been any interest on my statements. I'd say crapwest dont know what they are saying.

Tixy

Some lenders do now charge interest on the fees.

Natwest website is vague this is a quote

Interest on fees and charges is payable in line with our terms and
conditions.

from here - http://www.natwest.com/personal/credit-cards/g1/platinum.ashx
but whether its actually mentioned in your own credit agreement/T&Cs would be worth double checking - It doesn't appear to be in the sample credit agreement you can view online.

YorkshireBoy

Tixy wrote: »

It doesn't appear to be in the sample credit agreement you can view online.

You're not looking hard enough. See section 5 (b)...

Interest on fees and charges accrues at the Purchases rate and is charged from the date of application to the account until paid.

There is a 'workaround' though. Wonder if the OP has spotted it yet? If not, check the order of payments.

x1jeffrey

Got to be careful and ask before sign up for the transfer offer. I also don't know there is such fee before. Thanks for alerting me.

chattychappy

Natwest did tell me on the phone when I did the last BT with them. They are not the only ones.

Because the fee is attracting interest at a higher rate than the BT amount, it will be killed off pretty quickly. Note also that is a tiny amount - a percentage on a percentage. Though it might be annoying if you weren't expecting it, it has little impact on the overall value of the transaction.

(Eg if your BT fee is 3%, your purchase rate is 2%/month or APR 26%, and you pay at least the BT amount a month later, then it effectively adds 0.06% to the BT fee.)

msallen

Some CC companies do this, some don't. To be on the safe side, I always pay enough to cover the BT fee rather than just the minimum in the first month after a BT.