February 27, 2006

There is a new credit card on the block and it is one that should not be ignored.

Intelligent Finance is a credit company who are well known for their innovative mortgage and account packages. The new credit card being offered by Intelligent finance comes with some very interesting deals:

• 0% on all new purchases for the initial 8 months of your account opening
• 4.95% p.a. life-of-balance transfer offer (for balances transferred within first six months of opening account)

The 0% on all purchases offer is quite frankly one of the best on offer and used wisely could actually save you a lot of interest. If you were wanting to make a major purchase you could use a credit card with a 0% offer on all purchases to offset the costs of taking out a personal loan. In this case you would receive 0% APR for the first 8 months (while making the minimum payments)

Consider this example

Personal Loan

£5000
24 months
6.2% APR (industry average)
Interest Payable - £320.08

Intelligent finance credit card + personal loan

£5000 minus minimum payments for 8 months - £658

£4342 loan amount
16 months
6.2% APR (industry average)
Interest payable - £187.76

Offering you a saving of £132.32 over the same 24 months.

This then takes us to the lifetime balance transfer offer. Now if you are not trying to chase 0% balance transfer deals, and do not have the time to look for new deals when your current one runs out every 6-9 months, this option is a definite plus for you.

If you can transfer your current balances to the Intelligent Finance credit card within the first 6 months of your account opening, you will receive an outstanding offer of just 4.95% for the lifetime of your balance. If you were thinking of consolidating your outstanding balance and taking out a personal loan instead well, don’t! The current best deal is at MoneyBack Bank at 5.5%. The 4.95% deal is cheaper than any personal loan on offer at the moment.

A word of warning, if you go down the route of the lifetime balance transfer be aware that any purchases you make after the initial 8 month period will be charged at 16.9% APR. Take note of the following …

“If you do not pay off your balance in full, we will allocate your payments to balances with a lower interest rate before balances with higher interest rates.”

This payment allocation means that any payments you make to your balance will be allocated to 1) you balance that was transferred in (4.95) then 2) to any purchase made (after 8 months APR will be 16.9%)

Click here for more information on the Intelligent Finance credit card