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No is the short answer! At least, not if you are talking about credit cards that give you a generous credit limit based on an assessment of your credit history and your ability to make the monthly payments required and conduct the account responsibly.
Any decision to give you credit, whether it’s a loan, paying by monthly instalments for your new sofa, paying your mobile phone contract on a monthly basis, paying into a book club or a catalogue or obtaining a credit card is based on checking your credit score. A bad credit score results from a bad credit history that could include things marked against you on file such as County Court Judgements, missed or late payments, not being on the electoral roll, giving false details on your credit applications, having too many rejected credit searches in a short space of time or having no credit history at all because you’ve never taken out credit before.
Very few UK companies provide secured credit cards. They don’t require a credit check because you must pay a deposit to the credit card issuer before you can even get your hands on the card. That deposit is locked away in a bank account for the duration of your agreement with the secured card provider. Your credit limit may be determined by the amount of the deposit. So if you wanted a credit limit of around £2,000, some providers will demand that the deposit is also £2,000. If you have that amount of money readily available for a deposit, it’s unlikely that you’ll need a “bad risk” card in the first place!
These aren’t really credit cards. Basically they are a plastic card with a Mastercard or Visa logo, but you are spending your own money! You can buy them prepaid with a fixed amount or top them up with your own funds, usually with just what you need to spend. There are no large security deposits to surrender and because there is no credit involved there is no need for a credit check. And because no credit is involved, prepaid credit cards usually do not report to the credit reference agencies. Some prepaid cards offer loan advance schemes that allow you to establish or rebuild your credit file and that will be reported to the credit reference agencies. Many people use these prepaid credit cards as secure private and confidential second credit cards for purchases on the Internet that don’t run the risk of giving away details of their main credit card to identity thieves or Internet scammers.
