The quickest credit card to get

Posted in 'Personal Finance' by Barry Stamp

20 January 2012

The quickest credit card to be issued is currently the Post Office Credit Card.

In recent tests, the card arrived on the doormat just 2 days after being applied for, despite the application being ‘referred’ rather than being ‘instantly approved’.

This is the fastest credit card we’ve ever seen, though the terms and a direct debit instruction were mailed separately 5 days later, and the PIN mailed separately again 6 days later. This is by far the quickest credit card to be issued.

The Post Office Credit Card is a best buy for those who use credit cards abroad. It does not charge any fee for overseas transactions, saving around 3% on purchases made abroad. Also, if you purchase foreign currency through the Post Office Travel Service and pay with the card (which you can do online without being in possession of the PIN), there is no ‘cash advance’ fee that is usually payable when you purchase foreign currency on a credit card.

We tested the competitiveness of the Post Office Travel Service against Travelex which has a best rate guarantee, and were surprised to see that we got a better rate with the Post Office Travel Service. In our non-scientific one-off test, we saved almost 5% when taking into account the cash advance fee saving and the difference in exchange rates.

The downsides of the Post Office Credit Card are much less obvious. The only slight criticism is that the credit limits offered appear to be smaller than those issued by its competitors, although if you are taking the card abroad with you, you might feel much more comfortable with a smaller limit being applied to your card.

The APR is one of the very lowest at 16.9%, and the card has two introductory 0% rates – three months for purchases, and 14 months for balance transfers, which attract a 2.98% fee.

Our customers also rate the card highly – in our recently published Banking and Credit Card Survey" 60% rated the customer service level of the Post Office Credit Card as very good or excellent.

You can apply online here.