Return from abroad - no credit rating

Enfrance

We returned to the UK after living in France for 18 years.  During that time we let our Barclaycards lapse and at the moment are going through the hoops to resolve that. However, is it worth while enquiring about applying for another card even if the Barclaycard thing is unresolved. Incidentally we didn't owe anything on our old card.

Our need for a credit card is only to provide cover for new purchases and not to borrow. We would settle the card each month.

soolin

I’ve asked the forum team to move this to a more suitable board for responses as this board is for corona travel help. 

Sandtree

Enfrance said:

We returned to the UK after living in France for 18 years.  During that time we let our Barclaycards lapse and at the moment are going through the hoops to resolve that. However, is it worth while enquiring about applying for another card even if the Barclaycard thing is unresolved. Incidentally we didn't owe anything on our old card.

Our need for a credit card is only to provide cover for new purchases and not to borrow. We would settle the card each month.

And this is related to Covid because?

After 18 years many banks will have deleted or deep archived any records they have of you.

AmEx and Citi are two companies that allow you to transfer your accounts to a new country they operate in based on your past experience so double check if any of your French providers have any form of UK consumer operations.

In the absence of that you have your own bank, whoever that now is, or those that are for people with bad (or no) history. As long as its just the protection you want rather than a credit line then the interest rates are irrelevant but limits can be prohibitive. 

Outside of that, start rebuilding your history with mobile contracts, getting on the electoral roll etc and acknowledge that some of these take times to update at the CRAs

MSE_ForumTeam5

We've moved this to another board