Our list of 0% Introductory Balance Transfer Deals, 196 of them at the time of this writing, may be overkill for the typical consumer.
Don’t be overwhelmed, one deal outshines the rest, and is relatively easy to qualify for with good or excellent credit.
The Citibank Platinum Select Mastercard currently offers 0% introductory balance transfer APR for 24 months, which is the best deal out there. While many balance transfer deals come with a 4% to 5% steep upfront fee, this card charges a reasonable 3% balance transfer fee. This effectively means that over a 2 year period, you’ll be paying less than a 2% interest rate on your transferred balance!
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The balance transfer offer landscape has been changing in recent months, as Capital One has just nixed most of their 0% Introductory Balance Transfer Offers.
As phase 3 of the CARD Act goes into effect this month, card issuers are making some final adjustments to their portfolios. Capital One has dropped introductory balance transfer offers across most of their card portfolio, including all of their reward cards. The only two consumer cards with 0% introductory balance transfer offers are platinum cards for people with good credit.
Citi Improving Balance Transfer Offers, While Most Issuers Cut Back
American Express has very few balance transfer offers left in their card portfolio. Similarly, Discover has been cutting back hard on balance transfer deals:
“A year ago, we responded to the CARD Act by making a number of significant changes to maintain profitability including dramatic decreases in balance transfers. These changes are largely complete, so we expect card receivables to start showing modest sequential growth over the next several quarters.” – David Nelms, CEO, Discover
Meanwhile, Citi has actually improved their balance transfer offerings, having introduced a remarkable 0% for 24 month offer on Platinum Select earlier this year.
Deposit institutions are stuck between a rock and a hard place. There is too little loan demand, which affects big deposit institutions like Citi and US Bank – encouraging them to seek out more consumer credit card loans via balance transfer promotions. However, for companies focused on issuing credit cards like Amex, Discover and Capital One, the CARD Act makes it hard to trigger huge rate increases on missed payments, so they are scaling back on balance transfer deals, or alternatively are increasing the APRs they advertise from the outset. If you can’t depend on bending over your customers when they trip up, you have to advertise a much less attractive deal up front.
We believe this is why Capital One has dropped introductory 0% Balance Transfer APRs from all but 2 of their consumer cards, a departure from the recent past, when they offered 0% for 6-12 months on most cards.