Bank of America vs Citibank Secured Card

[kflo01]

Between these two. Which would be better to open a secured credit card account with? I am looking at which would be better to build a relationship with as far as speed of turning the card to unsecured, opening me up to there other unsecured prime cards, opening me up to their other products such as home loans, etc etc.

[Anonymous]

BofA for sure, Citi takes a long time based on what other people have discussed.

[coldfusion]

The BoA Customized Cash Rewards secured card also earns cashback just like the unsecured version of the card.

[sjt]

My vote goes to the B of A Cash Rewards Secured Visa.

[Bkist21]

Bank of America Cash Rewards secured... You get the cashback unlike with Citi.  I have the unsecured version and it's a keeper for me.

[firefox100]

Bank of America gets my vote, much better to deal with BOf A over Citi bank.

[pinkandgrey]

I'm going to play the devil's advocate here and vouch for Citi. I will admit that the cash back aspect of BofA is a benefit, but for me PERSONALLY, I think Citi is the better bank of the two. 

Of course it just depends on your own needs/wants. Can't really go wrong with either one.

Good luck! 

[PutThatMoneyOnTheTable]

BOA......once unsecured CLI are soft pulls. I started out secured with them in 2014 my card is at 35k and I had a car loan with them at 3.49% in 2016, which I paid off last year July. I get frequent 0% offers for BT or direct deposit (with 3% fee). 

[jnbowmar]

my citi secured is still secured after two years, and my new maturity date is 12/24 which is when my charge off will fall off, so I wouldnt open a ctii secured unless your bulding credit from not having any, instead of rebuilding credit with baddies. 

the citi card is kind of useless unless you have a clean report. 

[Horseshoez]

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@pinkandgrey wrote:

I'm going to play the devil's advocate here and vouch for Citi. I will admit that the cash back aspect of BofA is a benefit, but for me PERSONALLY, I think Citi is the better bank of the two. 

Of course it just depends on your own needs/wants. Can't really go wrong with either one.

Good luck! 

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Took the very words out of my mouth.  Last year after my Chapter 13 discharge I decided to start with a secured card, which I did without much research; yeah, my bad.  I ended up with 8 HPs and 1 secured card which didn't meet my needs and which I closed after less than 7 weeks.  Then I did my research and when looking at the CITI vs. BofA cards, both of which ultimately denied me for a secured card, and decided the Rewards were more important than what I consider to be CITIs better reputation.

In the end I landed a TDBank TDCash card and that couldn't have turned out better.  While the secured TDCash rewards are only 1% (growing to a 3-2-1 tiered structure after graduation), TDBank graduated my card to an unsecured Visa Signature card after exactly 6-months; way sooner than the minimum expected graduation dates for either BofA or CITI.  In the end I'm quite happy I was denied for both of these cards.