A credit card is a payment tool through which you can make purchases online and in physical stores in total safety, and which also allows you to withdraw cash at ATMs and distributors of your own and other banks, in cases where they accept the card payment.
As is well known, one of the main characteristics of a credit card is that when you make a transaction, you make money it is not picked up immediately from your current account, but at a later time.
Types of credit cards
Based on when the purchase made with the card will actually be charged, a distinction is made between:
- credit cards on balance, which provide for payment the following month;
- credit cards in installments, a revolving book.
After outlining the basic elements of this payment card, you may be wondering: What are the costs of a credit card? And we can actually speak of free credit cards? We analyze the current market of credit cards on the market in order to draw the picture of the situation.
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What are the costs of a credit card
In relation to its peculiarities and the fact that with a credit card you can also pay with a quantity of money that you do not have in your current account at a given time, credit cards:
- they are not granted to all types of customers with the same ease;
- foresee gods higher costs compared to other payment cards, such as debit cards or prepaid cards.
The cost of credit cards is often linked to the so-called credit line ceiling, or the maximum amount of monthly expenditure that can be made. Generally, a higher cost corresponds to the increase in the ceiling.
Credit cards will therefore almost always have a monthly management fee, to which you can add any costs foreseen for commissions on withdrawals. At this point, it is legitimate to wonder if there are any free credit cards, or in which the monthly fee corresponds to zero.
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Free credit cards: what they consist of
Looking at the credit cards currently available on the market, it appears that there are some possibilities offered to applicants. In particular, it is possible, in some cases, to zero the cost of the card fee forever or for a specified period of time, provided that certain transactions are completed.
Some cards may require specific amounts to be credited each month, but in most cases, credit cards become free when a certain number of monthly transactions are made.
In other cases, it is possible to speak of free credit cards in the sense that no costs are required for their issuance, nor are commissions applied to withdrawals from ATMs of other banks.
This is information to which the applicant will be able to access in total transparency, since when a credit card is issued it is always accompanied by a information documents with details of all costs.
Discover the best free credit cards
Among the types of credit cards with resettable fee, we find different versions of cards American Express, which differ from each other in the costs and services offered, therefore also in the conditions to be respected so that the fee is zeroed.
How to find and apply for a credit card
Being able to locate a low-cost credit card today is much easier than in the past, thanks also to online services, such as comparison of current accounts and cards of electronic payment.
When applying for a credit card, there will be 4 parties involved:
- the bank or institution that issues it, which will grant a certain ceiling associated with the card;
- the merchant with whom the transactions are carried out;
- the cardholder who, by signing the contract for the issuance of a credit card, undertakes to return the money relating to the transaction;
- the payment circuit, which has the function of managing payment requests and authorizations. The most common, in Italy and abroad, are Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Diners or Maestro.
Considering that the credit card is always associated with a current account (from which the amounts of each purchase are deducted), in case you want to get one, it would be better first bet on the activation of an account.
Among the best available today (and with which it is possible to save on the cost of the monthly management fee), there are the online checking accounts, which often provide credit cards at very competitive costs.
Click here to compare the best free online current account offers
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