What defines a "prime" card? Why wouldn't alliant be prime? It's not like a first premier...?!
What defines a "superprime"? And why do we care what's "considered" prime anyway?
Sorry for all the quotations 
Before the economic meltdown, these were considered prime banks/ credit card companies:
Citi
Chase
Bank of America
American Express
Discover
US Bank
(who else, who else)
semi-prime:
WaMu
Cap One
HSBC
Barclays
etc
These distinctions were made on perceptions of superior customer service. *coughs *
Credit unions and USAA (and local, small-town banks) carry slightly less weight for your FICO scores, which fries me. This is from the days where credit unions were typically local and maybe not very well capitalized. With the rise of the big nationwide CU's (and USAA!!!), I think the scoring formula needs to take another look at this. I do believe that PenFed and USAA are doing a bit better than WaMu these days.
So originally people cared about "prime" cards because (1) they were a mark of progress in credit recovery and (2) they generally had superior customer service. All that has pretty well gone out the window these days.
Citi
Chase
Bank of America
American Express
Discover
US Bank
(who else, who else)
semi-prime:
WaMu
Cap One
HSBC
Barclays
etc
These distinctions were made on perceptions of superior customer service. *coughs *
Credit unions and USAA (and local, small-town banks) carry slightly less weight for your FICO scores, which fries me. This is from the days where credit unions were typically local and maybe not very well capitalized. With the rise of the big nationwide CU's (and USAA!!!), I think the scoring formula needs to take another look at this. I do believe that PenFed and USAA are doing a bit better than WaMu these days.
So originally people cared about "prime" cards because (1) they were a mark of progress in credit recovery and (2) they generally had superior customer service. All that has pretty well gone out the window these days.
@haulingthescoreup wrote:
Before the economic meltdown, these were considered prime banks/ credit card companies:
Citi
Chase
Bank of America
American Express
Discover
US Bank
(who else, who else)
semi-prime:
WaMu
Cap One
HSBC
Barclays
etc
These distinctions were made on perceptions of superior customer service. *coughs *
Credit unions and USAA (and local, small-town banks) carry slightly less weight for your FICO scores, which fries me. This is from the days where credit unions were typically local and maybe not very well capitalized. With the rise of the big nationwide CU's (and USAA!!!), I think the scoring formula needs to take another look at this. I do believe that PenFed and USAA are doing a bit better than WaMu these days.
So originally people cared about "prime" cards because (1) they were a mark of progress in credit recovery and (2) they generally had superior customer service. All that has pretty well gone out the window these days.
Interesting. Thanks for the info!
In terms of FICO carrying more or less weight depending on the issuer, is there any source to that at FICO? Haven't seen that in any documentation thus far.....
smallfry wrote:
Wells Fargo gets no respect.
You know, I went back and forth about adding WF, but I knew I'd get heat whichever category I put them in.
Nowadays they appear to be one of the most stable banks around. Go figure.
mrdrum18 wrote:
In terms of FICO carrying more or less weight depending on the issuer, is there any source to that at FICO? Haven't seen that in any documentation thus far.....
This is from the Big Kahuna himself (Barry, myFICO admin):
TransUnion - FICO Score (Scoring of credit union cards vs "national" bank cards)