New to the UK: Getting a credit card

Olenna

Your best best is a full service i.e. standard bank not app only bank as they're more likely to approve you based upon account behaviour and have a fuller portfolio of products to offer. e.g. HSBC gave a standard current account with a small overdraft and credit card to my mate's sister who literally walked off the plane.

MEM62

The_Insane_Baron said:

I don't see how I keep getting stalled whenever a credit score is needed. 

You don't need a 'score'.  What you need is some history.  You already have one card (do you have a mobile contract?) so let time do the rest.  You cannot short-cut it.  

The_Insane_Baron

lr1277 said:

Well there was one potential shortcut but unfortunately I think it is too late now.

If you have an account in good standing in your originating country, Amex have a system where they will open an account in your destination country without waiting for your credit file to build up. But you should have asked Amex in your originating country before you moved. Some details here:

 

If you are not aware, Amex is not as widely accepted in the UK as Visa and Mastercard nor as widelyh accepted as in the US. Depends on where you want to spend with your Amex. Though the fans of Amex will say it is accepted in many places and where it isn't, you could try Paypal linked to Amex.

Finally in terms of building up your credit file, one of the water companies that supplied me was on my credit file. I don't know which utilities update your credit file. Btw it was Anglian Water.

Hey there,

This is actually excellent advice! I might still be able to do this because technically I am an expat - like the proper definition in which I am paid by a company abroad and am still taxable only abroad and not in the UK.

Thanks I think I am gonna give this a go!

Cheers

The_Insane_Baron

PRAISETHESUN said:

I had the exact same issues when I first moved to the UK. Many lenders had issues accepting my foreign address history, so I was locked out of any credit until I was here for approx. 12 months and found a lender who was willing to lend. Even then, I was limited to "sub-prime" cards for the first year or two after that (my first credit card had a limit with a whopping £250 limit, even with a fairly strong income).

As above, there are no shortcuts unfortunately. A thin credit history is considered by many lenders equally as bad as poor credit history. Ultimately you need to demonstrate an ability to manage credit responsibly, spending and paying off your CC on time. After a year or two of this, you should hopefully find yourself becoming eligible for better cards with higher limits. Amex in particular are one of the more picky lenders, so you might find you struggle with them for a while.

Omg £250! Sorry to hear, sounds like an awful experience

CliveOfIndia

The_Insane_Baron said:

Omg £250! Sorry to hear, sounds like an awful experience

I'd hardly say it's "awful", it's just how credit works.  If you are an "unknown quantity" to a lender, they're only going to be willing to offer you a very small amount of credit initially.  Once you've proved that you can use credit responsibly, and always repay what you owe, they'll be prepared to lend you more.

I think it's a tad over-dramatic to call having a small credit card limit "an awful experience"

PRAISETHESUN

CliveOfIndia said:

The_Insane_Baron said:

Omg £250! Sorry to hear, sounds like an awful experience

I'd hardly say it's "awful", it's just how credit works.  If you are an "unknown quantity" to a lender, they're only going to be willing to offer you a very small amount of credit initially.  Once you've proved that you can use credit responsibly, and always repay what you owe, they'll be prepared to lend you more.

I think it's a tad over-dramatic to call having a small credit card limit "an awful experience"

Wasn't too bad in the scheme of things. I just put one of my weekly shops on the card each month, and then paid it off in full by DD. That particular card gave me a singular increase to £450 limit after 12 months or so, and stayed at that level until I closed it a few years later. I now have multiple cards with more than enough limits for what I need. It was a useful stepping stone along the path to building UK credit history.

PaulW922

When my partner came to the UK from Brazil a few years ago we had the same issue. He did not have bad credit, but none at all. However because I knew this was going to be the case we took immediate steps to address it and now, several years later he has a credit history.

We started with just creating any kind of record at all - so that was a Lloyds current account and a '3' SIM only contract phone. The latter was only £5 a month but it created the beginnings of a history. We also took out a 'loan' with LoqBox which is in effect just a convoluted way of creating a completed loan agreement on your file.

After a year he was able to get a credit builder card from Capital One. He also took some instant credit at Ikea and Next, and over time has not reached the point where he has a mainstream card from Barclays. It just takes a while. I would suggest that applying for Amex is a waste of time unless you already have another Amex account elsewhere you can bring to the UK (one of the few providers who will do that).

So, concentrate on creating any kind of credit record at first and then build it by adding more substantial credit products.

Others will doubtless have different views, but this worked for us. 

Nasqueron

I wouldn't recommend using any sort of loan that pays interest, mobile contract and current account is a good start 

PRAISETHESUN

I'm also not a fan of the paid credit (re)building services such as loqbox. You can do more or less the same thing yourself with a well managed credit card, which doesn't cost anything extra, and there's no faffing about at the end jumping through whatever hoops they want to to jump through to cash out.

Nasqueron

PRAISETHESUN said:

I'm also not a fan of the paid credit (re)building services such as loqbox. You can do more or less the same thing yourself with a well managed credit card, which doesn't cost anything extra, and there's no faffing about at the end jumping through whatever hoops they want to to jump through to cash out.

Indeed though the suggestion was to use this to build credit history to get a credit card