topic Will establishing a relationship with a bank help my chances for a CC down the road?? in Credit Cards

Will establishing a relationship with a bank help my chances for a CC down the road??

mt2va — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 12:23:28 GMT

I'm still cleaning up my credit report and have gotten 3 secured CC to help me re-build. My score is slowly creeping up. My goal in the future is to try with Chase and/or Barclays. Mainly because I've never had/burned a card with them. I wonder if establishing a relationship with them will help me towards this goal? I have an auto lease with Chase. (going on 4 months now all on time payments) And I just opened a savings account with Barclays Bank. (they are paying much more interest than any of the other savings accounts I have)

I realize there are a lot of factors that go into making a CC decision besides just my score such as income, etc but if it came down to say a recon and I'm talking to someone personally would me having a good track record with the bank in question help me in my favor?

Re: Will establishing a relationship with a bank help my chances for a CC down the road??

randeman — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 13:07:07 GMT

I'm ambivalent about the idea. It didn't help me with Citi and I have four accounts with them and they turned me down for two cards. OTH, I have never done business with Chase and they gave me two signature cards. I would recommend Chase if you do. One, because of your auto loan; two, from what I have read, they can be really good guys when it comes to recon if needed. My only suggestion is to wait until your auto loan is six months old and then try for one of their non-signature cards.

Re: Will establishing a relationship with a bank help my chances for a CC down the road??

mt2va — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 13:11:22 GMT

Thanks for the info about Chase. I'm probably going to be waiting longer than 6 months because my score still needs to increase significantly. I was shooting for about next spring. Which card would be good for someone who isn't going to have the greatest score (probably mid 600) then? I think Freedom is pretty easy to get. I was also looking at the Chase BP card to use for gas. I'll have almost a year on my car lease then.

Re: Will establishing a relationship with a bank help my chances for a CC down the road??

randeman — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 13:21:37 GMT

A year is better, I agree. I can tell you that a Chase credit analyst told me that their approval criteria is the same for all their cards. Personally, I think it would be a YMMV thing. I would go with the Freedom card myself if I were you. There is no annual fee and the 5% cashback bonus varies from quarter to quarter. When you do finally apply, be sure to post your success (or otherwise) here for the benefit of others. Good luck, hope you get what you want!

Re: Will establishing a relationship with a bank help my chances for a CC down the road??

Anonymous — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 13:29:17 GMT

General Rule of Thumb: The bigger the bank, the less authority any front line employee has in making lending decisions be it on a credit card, auto loan, mortgage, line of credit, etc. The mean old lady thats been there since 1964, at that small single branch of The First State Bank of Nowhere, Wyoming that takes and reviews the loan ap has more authorty to approve or deny that loan than the well polished attractive 26 y/o college graduate at your local Chase, BoA, Cap-1, etc branch in your hometown whom is nothing more than a "paper pusher" sending it somewhere 4 statess away to someone in a cubicle that must follow strict guidelines.

Re: Will establishing a relationship with a bank help my chances for a CC down the road??

Anonymous — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 13:34:02 GMT

I was able to get a BoA 123 Cash Rewards a couple of years while I still had a bunch of baddies on my report (defaulted student loans) and I'm pretty sure it was because I had established a multi-year banking relationship with them. It probably didn't hurt that I had a lot of money in savings with them too, though.

Re: Will establishing a relationship with a bank help my chances for a CC down the road??

mikka1 — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 15:50:45 GMT

Anecdotically, largest issues I had so far with getting approved for cards, getting CLIs etc. were with those 2 banks I had banking relationship with since my student years in 2008. At times I had a strange feeling that knowing that much about my income / spending patterns did not help, but even made things worse with those banks.

Contrary to that Chase (that I never had any other banking relationship with) easily approved me for 3 cards one after another 2 of which are Siggies with respective limits.

LOL In order to check this hypothesis I closed my Citi checking account a week ago. Let's see if they start throwing me lots of nice CC offers anytime soon :-)

Re: Will establishing a relationship with a bank help my chances for a CC down the road??

Anonymous — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 15:58:48 GMT

Having a banking relationship will help, but as to how much it will help is directly dependent upon your daily balance in the banking account. Most banks use average daily balance as a metric to prevent customers from dumping huge amounts of money, get what they want, and then withdraw it instantly. If you have a private client relationship or even a JPM relationship, it will help you out more. Otherwise, an unofficial minimum amount of deposit required is about 10k at least. It really depends on how much your branch manager is willing to help you as well.

However, your best and safest recourse is to work on whatever is in your CR. As much as relationship can help, it can only help so much regardless of how much you deposit in. They are still not going to overlook major recent derogs or approve someone with a recent BK or charge off, for example. Neither is someone going to get approved for the CSP with a 600 score.

Banking relationships are generally more helpful for people with thin files (such as people who just migrated over), and not so much for bad files.

Re: Will establishing a relationship with a bank help my chances for a CC down the road??

mt2va — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 17:08:01 GMT

Even if it doesn't help if nothing else I found a bank that is paying significantly higher for savings accounts and has decent CD rates compared to all the other banks/credit unions I do business with. And not I didn't expect me having a relationship for them to overlook my score/credit report. I just wondered if maybe I was borderline and able to recon if the banking relationship would help me out in any way. I know with other places it seems to.

Re: Will establishing a relationship with a bank help my chances for a CC down the road??

lhcole77 — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 17:13:12 GMT

@mt2va wrote:
I'm still cleaning up my credit report and have gotten 3 secured CC to help me re-build. My score is slowly creeping up. My goal in the future is to try with Chase and/or Barclays. Mainly because I've never had/burned a card with them. I wonder if establishing a relationship with them will help me towards this goal? I have an auto lease with Chase. (going on 4 months now all on time payments) And I just opened a savings account with Barclays Bank. (they are paying much more interest than any of the other savings accounts I have)

I realize there are a lot of factors that go into making a CC decision besides just my score such as income, etc but if it came down to say a recon and I'm talking to someone personally would me having a good track record with the bank in question help me in my favor?

I come from the school of thought that having an established relationship can't hurt and it sometimes can help. I too have an auto loan though Chase. My final payment is in October and I was wanting to continue my relationship with them IN THE HOPES of getting a CC.

So I opened a checking account with them last month AND I got a $200 cash sign up bonus too! Planning on apping for a CC in a year with them.

Good luck! And thanks for this post. It is thought provoking.

Re: Will establishing a relationship with a bank help my chances for a CC down the road??

Anonymous — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 17:26:04 GMT

@mt2va wrote:
Even if it doesn't help if nothing else I found a bank that is paying significantly higher for savings accounts and has decent CD rates compared to all the other banks/credit unions I do business with. And not I didn't expect me having a relationship for them to overlook my score/credit report. I just wondered if maybe I was borderline and able to recon if the banking relationship would help me out in any way. I know with other places it seems to.

To me this is the key (I am anti-relationship!) If you find a bank with much better interest rates on deposits, that can be quantified as a dollar figure. Whereas "it may help me get card X to some extent" isn't so quantifiable (and in many cases neither is the benefit of getting that card). So when you find a bank giving 0.9% on savings (e.g. Barclays) vs 0.05% some other place, for me that outweighs most other considerations. Of course, often such banks might not have the best credit cards or sign-up bonuses, money flow has to be constrained somewhere!

Re: Will establishing a relationship with a bank help my chances for a CC down the road??

Anonymous — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 18:25:49 GMT

It depends on the bank/issuer. With Chase, if you have >=$10k on deposit, it will definitely improve your chances of getting approved, especially if your biggest problem is a thin credit file. Ten thousand in the bank isn't going to help you overcome a bankruptcy from last year though.

Re: Will establishing a relationship with a bank help my chances for a CC down the road??

missjae — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 18:40:14 GMT

The OP's question and some of the answers made me start thinking about whether it matters. Maybe it depends upon the institution. I bank with a local CU, mainly because I have an auto loan with them. However, I rarely use my checking/savings and only have sporadic, small deposits made to them. I asked for a $5,000 CC and they approved it, despite the fact I really only owe them money and don't utilize my other accounts.

I mainly bank with Citibank. Most of my money goes through them in some way or another and I have the lowest limits with them. Someone mentioned the avg daily balance and so on. I guess it could work for you, but it could work aganist you too.

You could always go into a branch and speak with a banker. I had a friend who was renting from me, used a prepaid cell phone, and when Citi gave him a $3,000 CC, they suspended it before he activated the card and asked for certain verification information. Since I was technically his landlord, his cell phone couldn't be verified, and all the utilities were in my name, I was able to use my banking relationship with Citi to get them to lift the restriction. It took the help of a very nice banker, but the banking relationship really helped.

Re: Will establishing a relationship with a bank help my chances for a CC down the road??

lhcole77 — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 18:58:14 GMT

missjae wrote:

You could always go into a branch and speak with a banker.

I 100% agree with this. Getting an answer directly from the source has always been beneficial in my experience.

Re: Will establishing a relationship with a bank help my chances for a CC down the road??

Anonymous — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 19:09:01 GMT

I'm one for always thinking that having a good banking relationship will help you.. but with Chase... ABSOLUTELY NOT! I had $100k sitting in my checking account alone a year ago, and they denied me over and over and over. The card in my signature is my wife's, I'm just an AU. I figured though since it's our everyday card and the only AU card I have, it deserves to go in my siggy.. haha..

But no.. Not with the big banks. They probably don't even see your balance or your history, nor is it a factor. Now with a credit union, they'll see it immediately.. how much on average you deposit.. how long you've been with them.. how much you have. If you had the crappiest score in the world, but you have $500,000 sitting in your credit share account that you've had for 10 years, one quick chat with the underwriter to take a peek at your accounts, and I bet you you'll get that card.

Curious as to why you don't want a credit card from a credit union anyway? Typically they're always more liberal with limits..

Re: Will establishing a relationship with a bank help my chances for a CC down the road??

Anonymous — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 21:39:05 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I'm one for always thinking that having a good banking relationship will help you.. but with Chase... ABSOLUTELY NOT! I had $100k sitting in my checking account alone a year ago, and they denied me over and over and over. The card in my signature is my wife's, I'm just an AU. I figured though since it's our everyday card and the only AU card I have, it deserves to go in my siggy.. haha..

But no.. Not with the big banks. They probably don't even see your balance or your history, nor is it a factor. Now with a credit union, they'll see it immediately.. how much on average you deposit.. how long you've been with them.. how much you have. If you had the crappiest score in the world, but you have $500,000 sitting in your credit share account that you've had for 10 years, one quick chat with the underwriter to take a peek at your accounts, and I bet you you'll get that card.

Curious as to why you don't want a credit card from a credit union anyway? Typically they're always more liberal with limits..

Not true. Chase definitely sees your balances, and it is a factor. You have to apply in person through a banker for them to factor this in, or you can mention it on recon after applying. Maybe they denied you "over and over and over" because you kept applying for credit cards shortly after being denied?

Re: Will establishing a relationship with a bank help my chances for a CC down the road??

Anonymous — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 21:47:55 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
I'm one for always thinking that having a good banking relationship will help you.. but with Chase... ABSOLUTELY NOT! I had $100k sitting in my checking account alone a year ago, and they denied me over and over and over. The card in my signature is my wife's, I'm just an AU. I figured though since it's our everyday card and the only AU card I have, it deserves to go in my siggy.. haha..

But no.. Not with the big banks. They probably don't even see your balance or your history, nor is it a factor. Now with a credit union, they'll see it immediately.. how much on average you deposit.. how long you've been with them.. how much you have. If you had the crappiest score in the world, but you have $500,000 sitting in your credit share account that you've had for 10 years, one quick chat with the underwriter to take a peek at your accounts, and I bet you you'll get that card.

Curious as to why you don't want a credit card from a credit union anyway? Typically they're always more liberal with limits..
Not true. Chase definitely sees your balances, and it is a factor. You have to apply in person through a banker for them to factor this in, or you can mention it on recon after applying. Maybe they denied you "over and over and over" because you kept applying for credit cards shortly after being denied?

+1 to what bibro said.

Mopar_jones, what were the reasons for denial that Chase listed?

For example, If they denied you because of too many inquiries........chances are you will be denied again if you continue racking up inquiries........

Re: Will establishing a relationship with a bank help my chances for a CC down the road??

Anonymous — Thu, 25 Jul 2013 13:38:46 GMT

The recent decline reason was for too much available credit.. which, fine.. whatever..

But going back some years, while I was both a banking customer and an investment customer, the reason for denial was 'age of accounts' and 'bankruptcy'. The accounts at the time were on average a year old because it was only two years after my bankruptcy. However, at that time, I had over $100k in my checking account, and at least $220k in multiple investment accounts through JP Morgan.

I did go into the branch.. and I did talk to my IA.. The bankruptcy was due to a failed business. I explained that in the past two years since I declared bankruptcy, I have obviously already rebuilt my credit for the most part, and I have the cash flow which I could prove. They held a majority of my assets.

I understand Chase has their lending practices.. and their guidelines.. but I'm sorry, when you have almost a million in liquid assets in their bank, and they won't give you a credit card, regardless of what your credit says, that's just ridiculous. I went down the street to my local credit union after I pulled all my money out of Chase, opened an account. Immediately they gave my a credit card with a $25k limit, preapproved me for a refi on my mortgage, (which I did), and issued me a $100k line of credit. All in the same day that Chase denied me for the third time.

So to each their own.. but Chase cares about that silly little number on your credit report more than anything. They don't care how many zeros are after your account balance.. which in my opinion, is absolutely stupid.. because another bank obviously will, and then you just lost all that profit potential simply because you think it's too much of a risk to extend a silly little credit card.

Re: Will establishing a relationship with a bank help my chances for a CC down the road??

Open123 — Thu, 25 Jul 2013 15:15:48 GMT

What I've found is if there are major blemishes on one's CR (such as an open judgement, or recent COs), the banking and investment relationship is meaningless. It certainly can't hurt, but as Bibro observed, it may be a difference maker for one on the fringe, not a recent BK or some other major derog.

Unless you have mid 7 figures. Then, all bets are off, where all sorts of exceptions (aside from overturning the Patriot Act) may come into play.

Re: Will establishing a relationship with a bank help my chances for a CC down the road??

Anonymous — Thu, 25 Jul 2013 16:38:14 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
The recent decline reason was for too much available credit.. which, fine.. whatever..

But going back some years, while I was both a banking customer and an investment customer, the reason for denial was 'age of accounts' and 'bankruptcy'. The accounts at the time were on average a year old because it was only two years after my bankruptcy. However, at that time, I had over $100k in my checking account, and at least $220k in multiple investment accounts through JP Morgan.

I did go into the branch.. and I did talk to my IA.. The bankruptcy was due to a failed business. I explained that in the past two years since I declared bankruptcy, I have obviously already rebuilt my credit for the most part, and I have the cash flow which I could prove. They held a majority of my assets.

I understand Chase has their lending practices.. and their guidelines.. but I'm sorry, when you have almost a million in liquid assets in their bank, and they won't give you a credit card, regardless of what your credit says, that's just ridiculous. I went down the street to my local credit union after I pulled all my money out of Chase, opened an account. Immediately they gave my a credit card with a $25k limit, preapproved me for a refi on my mortgage, (which I did), and issued me a $100k line of credit. All in the same day that Chase denied me for the third time.

So to each their own.. but Chase cares about that silly little number on your credit report more than anything. They don't care how many zeros are after your account balance.. which in my opinion, is absolutely stupid.. because another bank obviously will, and then you just lost all that profit potential simply because you think it's too much of a risk to extend a silly little credit card.

I'll type my response to both this post and the post above, rather than to revive the other dead thread. And just to clarify........I'm not trying to nitpick you nor do I have anything against you.

Was Chase ever included in the BK? Iam just trying to find out about all possible reasonings behind the denial.

While you had a lot of liquid assets with Chase (and possibly elsewhere), it doesn't really matter to them when you have a BK on file. Even as a JPMorgan client, your banking relationship isn't going to help you (or anyone for that matter) override major derogs. It's a great achievement that you were able to rebuild in such a short period of time, and I do understand it can be frustrating to get denied for a few thousand dollars. However, *if* you were to file BK again, Chases most likely will not even have access to a single cent of your assets, since unsecured debt have the lowest priority. You could have millions in the accounts but it wouldn't matter to them in the slightest bit if they are not going recover a penny of it. It's not about what you have, but rather about what they think they can get back. I'm not trying to say (or curse) that you're going to file bankruptcy again, but statistically you're more likely than most other people.

Like CreditScholar said, it is unfair to compare CUs to banks. They operate differently and are just different in general. That's like complaining about how bad Whole Food is simply because Walmart is cheaper than Whole Food.

At the end of the day, there are other banks that value your business, and you seem to have a much better opinion of them than Chase. Not every bank is right for everyone and vice versa. You could try to work on the reasons for denial, and try get approved again in the future, or just take your business elsewhere entirely. Many other lenders do have products that rivals Chase's, so you're not exactly missing out either.

Sidetrack a little. From your other post you said you wanted a metal card. Why not get a custom made card, or try to get a business Centurion? From what I've read it's relatively easier to get compared to the personal version, and it sounds like your business is thriving as well.