Have lenders changed their eligibility criteria?

nextplease

I took out a 0% balance transfer card around 2 years ago.
Nothing has changed much, if anything, my salary has gone up, we've lived in our house longer and the amount I want to borrow has gone down.
Trying to find a card to transfer again and everywhere is saying I'm not eligible.
Anyone know why please?

Brie

You already have too much credit?

It's easy to say "I want a £5k limit on this new card so I can pay off this old one" but that means you have £5k on the new card and maybe £5k limit on the old card so you have to be able to pay off £10k of debt not just the £5k you want to transfer.  That's because there's no guarantee you're going to pay off the old card and you may just run up lots more by buying toys on Amazon or whatever.  

cymruchris

nextplease said:

I took out a 0% balance transfer card around 2 years ago.
Nothing has changed much, if anything, my salary has gone up, we've lived in our house longer and the amount I want to borrow has gone down.
Trying to find a card to transfer again and everywhere is saying I'm not eligible.
Anyone know why please?

Criteria change all the time. In today's market with the focus on cost pressures many are experiencing, the number of 'offers' are more selectively offered than they once were.

If you're getting no offers - then it may be that they judge your current situation 'stretched' in terms of your debt to income. It may be that you've only been making minimum payments for the last two years. It may be lots of things.

When you took out the current 0 percent card 2 years ago - what was your plan to reduce the actual amount owed - and how far did you get with that plan?

If you can't get the next 0 percent card - what's your plan going to be now that you'll be paying interest? (Do you know what the interest rate will be?)

DullGreyGuy

nextplease said:

I took out a 0% balance transfer card around 2 years ago.
Nothing has changed much, if anything, my salary has gone up, we've lived in our house longer and the amount I want to borrow has gone down.
Trying to find a card to transfer again and everywhere is saying I'm not eligible.
Anyone know why please?

Inflation has generally outpaced salaries so in real terms your income is lower.

Certain large cost items, mortgages/rent, have outpaced inflation so spending power has gone down further.

The FCA has increased focus on affordability so simply having a good record is no longer enough if you cannot evidence sufficient disposable income to service your debts when at normal interest rates/increased spending on cards etc.

Hoenir

nextplease said:

I took out a 0% balance transfer card around 2 years ago.
Nothing has changed much, if anything, my salary has gone up, we've lived in our house longer and the amount I want to borrow has gone down.
Trying to find a card to transfer again and everywhere is saying I'm not eligible.
Anyone know why please?

You've only made miminal repayments on the balance transfer card for the past 2 years. 

Prior to that where did the debt originate from? 

Potential lenders will analyse your historic behaviour in arriving at their decision.

enthusiasticsaver

Has the balance of the original card reduced much? 

How much credit do you have available on cards and what is your utilisation rate? 

The answers to these questions will affect your eligibility for further credit. 

Superhoopza

Hoenir said:

nextplease said:

I took out a 0% balance transfer card around 2 years ago.
Nothing has changed much, if anything, my salary has gone up, we've lived in our house longer and the amount I want to borrow has gone down.
Trying to find a card to transfer again and everywhere is saying I'm not eligible.
Anyone know why please?

You've only made miminal repayments on the balance transfer card for the past 2 years. 

Prior to that where did the debt originate from? 

Potential lenders will analyse your historic behaviour in arriving at their decision.

How have you come to that conclusion about the OP?

Nasqueron

Superhoopza said:

Hoenir said:

nextplease said:

I took out a 0% balance transfer card around 2 years ago.
Nothing has changed much, if anything, my salary has gone up, we've lived in our house longer and the amount I want to borrow has gone down.
Trying to find a card to transfer again and everywhere is saying I'm not eligible.
Anyone know why please?

You've only made miminal repayments on the balance transfer card for the past 2 years. 

Prior to that where did the debt originate from? 

Potential lenders will analyse your historic behaviour in arriving at their decision.

How have you come to that conclusion about the OP?

It's a fair assumption based on the fact that the OP had a 2 year 0% deal but needs to do another transfer now the deal has run out. If you had say a £5k card and paid off just the minimum of £50 a month, that's only £1200 off the debt for example, if you were paying off £200 a month you'd have paid £4800 and so wouldn't need to transfer again

Superhoopza

Nasqueron said:

Superhoopza said:

Hoenir said:

nextplease said:

I took out a 0% balance transfer card around 2 years ago.
Nothing has changed much, if anything, my salary has gone up, we've lived in our house longer and the amount I want to borrow has gone down.
Trying to find a card to transfer again and everywhere is saying I'm not eligible.
Anyone know why please?

You've only made miminal repayments on the balance transfer card for the past 2 years. 

Prior to that where did the debt originate from? 

Potential lenders will analyse your historic behaviour in arriving at their decision.

How have you come to that conclusion about the OP?

It's a fair assumption based on the fact that the OP had a 2 year 0% deal but needs to do another transfer now the deal has run out. If you had say a £5k card and paid off just the minimum of £50 a month, that's only £1200 off the debt for example, if you were paying off £200 a month you'd have paid £4800 and so wouldn't need to transfer again

It very much depends on minimum payments. Some are 1% of the balance + interest (£0 in this case). 

With your example of £5k credit, the following applies:

Paying 2% a year would of cleared £1921 after 24 months
Paying 3% a year would of cleared £2597 after 24 months
Paying 5% a year would of cleared £3540 after 24 months

Even if you said the minimum monthly payment was £25 (pretty standard), you would have to be paying at 18% per month to clear the balance in 24 months.

Happy to show working if people doubt the numbers.

Nasqueron

Superhoopza said:

Nasqueron said:

Superhoopza said:

Hoenir said:

nextplease said:

I took out a 0% balance transfer card around 2 years ago.
Nothing has changed much, if anything, my salary has gone up, we've lived in our house longer and the amount I want to borrow has gone down.
Trying to find a card to transfer again and everywhere is saying I'm not eligible.
Anyone know why please?

You've only made miminal repayments on the balance transfer card for the past 2 years. 

Prior to that where did the debt originate from? 

Potential lenders will analyse your historic behaviour in arriving at their decision.

How have you come to that conclusion about the OP?

It's a fair assumption based on the fact that the OP had a 2 year 0% deal but needs to do another transfer now the deal has run out. If you had say a £5k card and paid off just the minimum of £50 a month, that's only £1200 off the debt for example, if you were paying off £200 a month you'd have paid £4800 and so wouldn't need to transfer again

It very much depends on minimum payments. Some are 1% of the balance + interest (£0 in this case). 

With your example of £5k credit, the following applies:

Paying 2% a year would of cleared £1921 after 24 months
Paying 3% a year would of cleared £2597 after 24 months
Paying 5% a year would of cleared £3540 after 24 months

Even if you said the minimum monthly payment was £25 (pretty standard), you would have to be paying at 18% per month to clear the balance in 24 months.

Happy to show working if people doubt the numbers.

Minimum payment will be a % OR a fixed fee so if they theoretically borrowed 5k it would be probably be 1% minimum (rather than £25 a month) i.e. it would be £50 a month

Regardless, I am not doubting numbers, but rather if they have had 2 years at 0% and are needing to BT again after 2 years, it's highly unlikely they have been making substantial payments - £208.33 a month would have cleared £5k in 2 years for example which isn't that much particularly vs say paying interest on the balance before the BT was done

OP post and comment history is basically non-existent and they haven't responded since this post so until they post the balance total and what they were paying we can't really advise

Superhoopza

Nasqueron said:

Minimum payment will be a % OR a fixed fee so if they theoretically borrowed 5k it would be probably be 1% minimum (rather than £25 a month) i.e. it would be £50 a month

That was included in my calculation.

Nasqueron said:

Regardless, I am not doubting numbers, but rather if they have had 2 years at 0% and are needing to BT again after 2 years, it's highly unlikely they have been making substantial payments - £208.33 a month would have cleared £5k in 2 years for example which isn't that much particularly vs say paying interest on the balance before the BT was done

You said it was perfectly reasonable to make a judgement that only minimum payments were made. Which was not correct. Now you're changing the narrative to substantial payments.

It's a classic example of people on here being judgemental before finding out facts. It was reasonably to ask the question, like others have, of what payments have been made before people jump in with unfounded statements and others back them up before facts are known.