I wish I knew about State Department Federal Credit Union a few years ago when I needed a secured card so I thought I would post some info I found out about this card from one of their friendly CSR's for those of you looking for a good secured card. I think this is by far the best secured card available.
First off you have to join SDFCU to apply for their credit products, they do a soft pull for membership.
There is no hard pull for their secured card.
The secured card has an APR of 6.99%......best I have seen for a secured card. This APR includes purchases, balance transfers and cash advances.
No Fee for balance transfers.
The card has an EMV chip and pin and has no international transaction fees.
Their is NO Annual fee.
They report to all 3 CB's, not sure if it reports as secured or not.
You can open the secured card with a regular savings or CD. They are currently paying around 1.05% for a 2 year CD which is not too bad. You can also open the card with a regular savings but that will only pay 0.10%.
There is no limit to the credit limit.....can be up to whatever amount you have in CD, oh but the minimum is $250 and $500 if you want to use a CD as security . I wonder if anyone out there has a 50K secured card.
The one and only downside I see to this card is that it cannot graduate to unsecured.
I was thinking about closing my 3 secured cards and moving the funds to SDFCU and getting their secured card. Just not sure if I want to add a new tradline and mess with my AAoA.
Hope this info helps some of you that are looking for a really good secured card. Im really surprised that this card is not promoted more here especially with so many terrible secured card offerings.
@IWOL wrote:I wish I knew about State Department Federal Credit Union a few years ago when I needed a secured card so I thought I would post some info I found out about this card from one of their friendly CSR's for those of you looking for a good secured card. I think this is by far the best secured card available.
First off you have to join SDFCU to apply for their credit products, they do a soft pull for membership.
There is no hard pull for their secured card.
The secured card has an APR of 6.99%......best I have seen for a secured card. This APR includes purchases, balance transfers and cash advances.
No Fee for balance transfers.
The card has an EMV chip and pin and has no international transaction fees.
Their is NO Annual fee.
They report to all 3 CB's, not sure if it reports as secured or not.
You can open the secured card with a regular savings or CD. They are currently paying around 1.05% for a 2 year CD which is not too bad. You can also open the card with a regular savings but that will only pay 0.10%.
There is no limit to the credit limit.....can be up to whatever amount you have in CD, oh but the minimum is $250 and $500 if you want to use a CD as security . I wonder if anyone out there has a 50K secured card.
The one and only downside I see to this card is that it cannot graduate to unsecured.
I was thinking about closing my 3 secured cards and moving the funds to SDFCU and getting their secured card. Just not sure if I want to add a new tradline and mess with my AAoA.
Hope this info helps some of you that are looking for a really good secured card. Im really surprised that this card is not promoted more here especially with so many terrible secured card offerings.
Without question I would have latched onto this card if I were starting out today. And I would have put a 100k CD on it. Instead I went the Citi Secured route with their 25k CD. At the time they were paying 4.07% APR but both the CL and high APR are long gone.
Still might. I like the chip and pin. Don't really need the CL anymore. Amex is doing a great job for flexible spend.
There is no hard pull if you apply over the phone. If you apply via their internet site, it's a hard pull.
It reports to all 3 CRAs as a secured card.
I've had this card since October 2012. Best secured card and CSRs are awesome. 
Raven.....thanks for the additional info. I was also wondering, do you get the Flexpoints rewards with the secured card? What is their rewards program like, can you use the points for travel, transfer to airlines etc?
The chip + PIN on the secured card is awesome! They didn't do that at the time I joined SDFCU. Thats great! I don't have a secured card, but everything else about my card sounds the same as this. The card is awesome. There are NO FEES. I use it daily in Great Britain without paying any ForEx fee. The interest rate is hard to beat, its the best I have. The rewards are like any other rewards program. Personally, I prefer cards that collect points. I like to collect my points over time and then spend the accumulation on some sort of cool tangible thing, rather than having smaller monthly amounts of dollars credit back to my account, which I won't even notice unless I am checking my statement transactions. But you can use the points for gift cards or credits as well. But the Flexpoints store actually has a lot of great stuff that I want to buy.
EX:694 TU:744 EQ:777
FWIW, if you're in the San Francisco area and need branches and what not, another great option for a secured card is the Platinum Visa at SF Fire CU. No EMV chip unfortunately (they're looking into it), but a great APR and no FTF with 1% cash back (and no other fees!). They report to all 3 CRs (and in my case, they reported on the day I opened the account, which was really helpful).
I do agree that the SDFCU is the best secured card on the market though.
