topic Re: USB Smartly rumors in Credit Cards

USB Smartly rumors

NoMoreE46 — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 16:44:10 GMT

huh - surprising:

https://www.doctorofcredit.com/rumor-u-s-bank-smartly-visa-credit-card-to-be-discontinued/

Re: USB Smartly rumors

cashorcharge — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 16:49:07 GMT

You beat me to it! Just read and was going to share the same. All that hype....to then get disco'd in less than 6 months.....oops

Re: USB Smartly rumors

cjesser15 — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 17:32:39 GMT

Unfortunate. I moved my checking to US Bank and bought a bunch of CDs from them solely because of the Smartly Credit card. Hopefully we're grandfathered or there's no reason to stay. I hadn't gotten around to moving my investments to them yet, but I was planning on it. Guess this changes that decision for the time being.

Re: USB Smartly rumors

swankytiger — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 17:37:16 GMT

They must have underestimated the kind of user who has the money to max the smartly and the type of card user they are. Im guessing it is wildly unprofitable. Are we seeing a GS/Apple Card and WF/Bilt card type of misstep? Though with it being their card, they can just discontinue it, rather than being stuck in a contract.

Re: USB Smartly rumors

IntegerIntrovert — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 22:45:14 GMT

Good thing I didn't close my AR.

Re: USB Smartly rumors

creditrizz — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 01:29:04 GMT

Too many people have 100k in investible assets. Should have set the minimum for 4% at 300k, and made 100k the 3% the threshold. Even these levels may be a bit too low after all of the inflation we had recently and may have in the near future.

Fidelity had a 3% rate on their card for a while, but even years ago set the minimum assets to quality to I think 500k (maybe even 1M, can't remember). Even then they ended up discontinuing it. Fidelity is an awesome platform though, so they can set their threshold higher than someone like US Bancorp that has a relatively feature-poor trading platform.

If they grandfather us in I'll probably hold off on doing things like charging taxes to it, since it will be the holy grail card I wouldn't want to risk cancellation of.

Re: USB Smartly rumors

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 01:42:39 GMT

@creditrizz wrote:
Too many people have 100k in investible assets. Should have set the minimum for 4% at 300k, and made 100k the 3% the threshold. Even these levels may be a bit too low after all of the inflation we had recently and may have in the near future.

Fidelity had a 3% rate on their card for a while, but even years ago set the minimum assets to quality to I think 500k (maybe even 1M, can't remember). Even then they ended up discontinuing it. Fidelity is an awesome platform though, so they can set their threshold higher than someone like US Bancorp that has a relatively feature-poor trading platform.

The 3% was for those holding $2M+ in MANAGED assets, which implied a minimum of $10-20K in annual fees. If you felt the fee was worth it for the management, then the 3% is a nice freebie, but even the most hardened MyFico wouldn't pay that JUST to get 3%

So US Banks offering was way off the norm. It's nice that they have a creative team but the ideas should be checked for economic soundness a little bit better. It's easy to come up with attractive products to get market share, making it profitable is slightly more difficult!

I wonder if they really didn't think that many would take the $100K positions.

Or, to be rude: maybe they did really detailed calculations, but because their IT, um, sucks, the decimal point was wrong by two places!

Re: USB Smartly rumors

swankytiger — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 01:45:30 GMT

@creditrizz wrote:
Too many people have 100k in investible assets. Should have set the minimum for 4% at 300k, and made 100k the 3% the threshold. Even these levels may be a bit too low after all of the inflation we had recently and may have in the near future.

Fidelity had a 3% rate on their card for a while, but even years ago set the minimum assets to quality to I think 500k (maybe even 1M, can't remember). Even then they ended up discontinuing it. Fidelity is an awesome platform though, so they can set their threshold higher than someone like US Bancorp that has a relatively feature-poor trading platform.

If they grandfather us in I'll probably hold off on doing things like charging taxes to it, since it will be the holy grail card I wouldn't want to risk cancellation of.

I mean multiple other banks have the $100k limit and seem fine. BoA for 2.625/3.5% and Logix for 3% are both there, and Alliant is 2.5% on $10k/month. So what has US Bank done different?

Re: USB Smartly rumors

creditrizz — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 03:38:35 GMT

@swankytiger wrote:
@creditrizz wrote:
Too many people have 100k in investible assets. Should have set the minimum for 4% at 300k, and made 100k the 3% the threshold. Even these levels may be a bit too low after all of the inflation we had recently and may have in the near future.

Fidelity had a 3% rate on their card for a while, but even years ago set the minimum assets to quality to I think 500k (maybe even 1M, can't remember). Even then they ended up discontinuing it. Fidelity is an awesome platform though, so they can set their threshold higher than someone like US Bancorp that has a relatively feature-poor trading platform.

If they grandfather us in I'll probably hold off on doing things like charging taxes to it, since it will be the holy grail card I wouldn't want to risk cancellation of.
I mean multiple other banks have the $100k limit and seem fine. BoA for 2.625/3.5% and Logix for 3% are both there, and Alliant is 2.5% on $10k/month. So what has US Bank done different?

Dont know what logix is but I don't see why I even have to explain to you how 2.6 or a capped 2.5 are not at all comparable to an unlimited 4%

Re: USB Smartly rumors

Bockrocker — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 09:54:02 GMT

Logix is a credit union that offers a 3% MasterCard with 100k relationship. The difference in that case being there is no brokerage, you have to hold the money in a normal deposit account and they will be earning more interest on the money than they will pass on to you, helping to pay for the rewards.

Re: USB Smartly rumors

swankytiger — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 12:37:48 GMT

yea my thoughts were that US Bank went too high for cash back percentage.

Re: USB Smartly rumors

G2244 — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 15:43:12 GMT

@swankytiger wrote:
yea my thoughts were that US Bank went too high for cash back percentage.

You could look at it a couple of different ways. I think the cash back percentage is just fine (and helps market the card for them). I think the error on their part was making it unlimited. If there were a monthly cap, it severly limits the behavior they are likley seeing. With, say a $10K monthly limit which would still be worth it for many to get the card, they would not get people going all in on XXL manufactured spend or even just paying a larger tax bill. They could even do a reverse scale. At 4% back $5K limit, at 3% back $10K limit, on down to 2% being the unlimited category. Then just allow us to pick what we see as our best option.

Re: USB Smartly rumors

AndySoCal — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 15:57:36 GMT

@Bockrocker @With Logix the 100000 in deposit accounts (CD's are excluded) or loans. Currently you can get 3.75% on the high yield savings for up 100k the amount over that is at 1.8%

Re: USB Smartly rumors

Aim_High — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 20:08:38 GMT

09/07/24

^ This.

The only thing really surprising to me is how quickly it seems to be folding. This could put a black eye on US Bank's products in the eyes of the public. Not very well thought-out, IMO.

Re: USB Smartly rumors

Aim_High — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 20:35:18 GMT

@G2244 wrote:
@swankytiger wrote:
yea my thoughts were that US Bank went too high for cash back percentage.
You could look at it a couple of different ways. I think the cash back percentage is just fine (and helps market the card for them). I think the error on their part was making it unlimited. If there were a monthly cap, it severly limits the behavior they are likley seeing. With, say a $10K monthly limit which would still be worth it for many to get the card, they would not get people going all in on XXL manufactured spend or even just paying a larger tax bill. They could even do a reverse scale. At 4% back $5K limit, at 3% back $10K limit, on down to 2% being the unlimited category. Then just allow us to pick what we see as our best option.

I think you're both correct, @swankytiger and @G2244. The problem with the Smartly could have been resolved in multiple ways and seem to indicate to me they didn't do their due diligence before trying to roll it out.

Let's remember, too, that size matters. US Bank was apparently trying to compete with much larger banks, namely Bank of America. Merrill Lynch has a full 10x assets under management than US Bank Asset Management Group. (About $472 Billion versus $4.7 Trillion.) And outside of invested assets, Bank of America has 4x the assets deposited of US Bank, ranking them number2 in the USA to US Bank's number 5 position. ($669B versus $2.5T.) That size probably makes it much easier for BofA to offer very competitive credit products than US Bank for a variety of reasons.

So the short-comings could have been mitigated by not trying so hard to out-do BofA by either making the rewards lower, and therefore more sustainable, or by capping the rewards, or by raising the bar on what it takes to earn those higher rewards.

Re: USB Smartly rumors

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 22:19:18 GMT

@Aim_High wrote:
@G2244 wrote:
The problem with the Smartly could have been resolved in multiple ways and seem to indicate to me they didn't do their due diligence before trying to roll it out.

And as I mentioned, this is not the first time. The Cash+ was launched with 5% uncapped and underwent a series of nerfs. Did some oldtimer at USB say "Well, 5% uncapped didn't work, but I bet 4% will!"

Re: USB Smartly rumors

Cashbackjunky — Sun, 16 Mar 2025 01:57:38 GMT

Wow!! I was about to app for this card and move quite a bit of money from my BofA/Merrill accounts to US Bank. Probably not gonna happen now, since there is no guarantee of being grandfathered in.

Sigh... Oh well, guess I HAVE to keep gardening now. Thanks for sharing @NoMoreE46

Re: USB Smartly rumors

MJ-san — Sun, 16 Mar 2025 06:57:39 GMT

So my experience has been ...

Smartly Visa encouraged me to move 100k in investments - and I have ~4k/month spend on the card. Also added a checking and savings - I keep about 5k in the savings. Not abusing the system in any way. I'm probably doing exactly what they were hoping?

It's my main card other than 5% Amex-Amazon or 5.25% BofA custom cash (online) or Citi ThankYou/Sears 10% grocery/restaurant.

If they can figure out a cap (at a reasonable amount) to weed out the folks taking advantage, that's cool, I'll stick with it.

My experience has also not been great with the advisor side of things - calls and emails not returned, not getting anything close to the attention I would expect- I have $2m with Merrill and I said the 100k was a start if they could show me that there was value in moving more to US Bank. Crickets...

BofA and Merril remain as our primary bank- thee experience with US Bank has actually solidified that thinking. But I still will use it for the maximum rewards I can get 😇 with the minimum investment.

Re: USB Smartly rumors

911gt34life — Sun, 16 Mar 2025 13:54:32 GMT

people were abusing this card therefore they're gonna shut down which is sad...

you beat me to it even had the link yesterday ready 😆 ...

can you imagine applying for this card and wasting inquiry ...

Re: USB Smartly rumors

AndySoCal — Sun, 16 Mar 2025 15:24:28 GMT

If you read the post by the Doctor of Credit at the end it mentions that USB has sent letters to select customers were ones using the card for business transactions. The card is a personal credit card not a business card. This is a violation of the card holder agreement. If those that were or are doing that keep doing that dont stop USB could close the card possibly more.