Merrick Bank Secured Card Review

Merrick Bank Secured Card Review Summary

The Merrick Bank Secured Card is a pretty good credit card for people with bad credit who want to improve their credit score without spending too much money.

Merrick Bank’s Secured Card requires a refundable security deposit of at least $200, which you can increase up to $3,000 over time, and charges a total of $36 in fees each year. Account activity also gets reported to the major credit bureaus, so on-time payments and low credit utilization will help rebuild your credit score.

One downside to this offer is that it does not include rewards. Several other secured credit cards will reward you for each purchase you make, and most of those cards actually have lower fees than the Merrick Bank Secured Card. Plus, no secured card is a good choice for financing, since your credit limit generally equals the amount of your deposit.

Merrick Bank Secured Card Highlights

$200 Minimum Deposit

Many secured cards require minimum deposits of $300 to $400, which means the Merrick Bank Secured Card is less taxing on your finances and thus more accessible. Plus, you can add to your deposit over time, up to a total of $3,000, for added charging power and faster credit improvement.

Merrick Bank Secured Card Lowlights

$36 Annual Fee

The Merrick Bank Secured Card’s fixed yearly cost is about average for a secured card, but it’s still $36 too expensive as long as no-annual-fee secured cards are available. That’s especially true when you consider that the fee will be assessed right after account opening, giving you only $164 to spend starting out, assuming a $200 deposit. After the first year, the annual fee will be charged to you in monthly installments of $3 each. 

$12 Additional-Card Fee

Most credit-card companies won’t charge you to add an authorized user and thus receive an additional card with account access. That makes sense, after all, considering that issuers make money from transaction fees. But the Merrick Bank Secured Card breaks the mold badly in this regard, charging you $12 for each additional active card. In other words, this isn’t the best account to share. 

Other Things To Consider About The Merrick Bank Secured Card

2% Foreign-Transaction Fee

This card does not make a good international travel companion or means of paying for purchases from foreign-based merchants. That’s because it charges a 2% foreign-transaction fee, which is more than the market average but not a fee anyone should feel resigned to pay.

Relatively Low Regular APR

The Merrick Bank Secured Card’s 22.2% (V) regular APR is comparable to the secured-card average of 21.88%, according to WalletHub’s latest Credit Card Landscape Report, but that doesn’t make carrying a balance a good idea. After all, you fronted the money for your credit line, so carrying a balance from month to month will be tantamount to loaning yourself money at a nearly 18% interest rate. Would you really charge yourself that much? The same principle applies to cash advances, too, though they’re far more expensive. The card’s cash-advance APR is 22.45%, which is above average, and a fee of $10 or 4% of the amount withdrawn (whichever is higher) also applies.

Visa Benefits

The fact that the Merrick Bank Secured Card is on the Visa network means you can use it to make purchases pretty much anywhere plastic is accepted. You’ll also enjoy network benefits such as rental-car insurance. 

Balance Transfers Prohibited

Balance transfers generally shouldn’t be of much interest to secured-card users for one simple reason: A transferred balance can’t exceed your credit limit, which is prepaid with a secured card. And if you had the money to cover the balance to begin with, you’d just pay off the debt directly. But it’s still worth mentioning that this type of transaction cannot be performed with the Merrick Bank Secured Card because that’s not the case for all secured cards. 

Off-Limits To Some Bad-Credit Applicants

Secured cards generally are the easiest credit cards to get, as their refundable security deposit erases the risk typically associated with lending to people with bad credit. Secured cards don’t offer guaranteed approval, though. There’s always some sort of qualification that must be met, whether it’s simply a valid Social Security number or a certain type of credit history. Merrick Bank’s line in the sand is that you can’t have an undischarged bankruptcy pending or unpaid tax debts.If that rules you out, you can get the credit-improvement process started with a card such as OpenSky Secured, which does not require a credit check.

Merrick Bank Secured Card vs. The Competition

Before deciding that a given credit card is right for you, you should always make sure to check out the competition. We therefore compared the Merrick Bank Secured Card to some of the most popular alternatives for people with limited or bad credit. We did so using six primary metrics, which collectively speak to the value of an offer for members of the target audience. You can find the results of this exercise below

Merrick Bank Classic Secured Credit Card Review Methodology

This Merrick Bank Classic Secured Credit Card review is based on WalletHub’s proprietary 100-point credit card rating system. By using a consistent methodology to evaluate the Merrick Bank Classic Secured Credit Card and all other cards, WalletHub’s credit card experts make it easy for people to compare their options and find the best credit cards for their needs.

The WalletHub rating system uses 16 key metrics grouped into seven categories: Fees, Rewards, Two-year Cost, Interest Rates, Approval Requirements, Special Features, and Reviews. Each metric has a maximum number of points allocated to it, based on the metric’s importance as determined by our editors. The points are added up to create an overall rating for the Merrick Bank Classic Secured Credit Card out of a maximum of 100 points, which is then converted to a 5-point scale.

Ratings for each category reflect how close Merrick Bank Secured Card is to WalletHub’s definition of a 5-star credit card, which is based on market conditions and what we believe are reasonable terms. We compare Merrick Bank Secured Card to that standard to give a numerical approximation of how reasonable and competitive its terms are compared to other cards.

To learn more about how WalletHub rates credit card offers, check out our full credit card review methodology.