Types of Credit Cards in Australia

Types of Credit Cards in Australia

The Plastic Cards

The ease and safety of using a credit card to pay for the products you buy is known to all of us. But there are a number of cards available in the market, not only in terms of card brands and banks providing cards but also in terms of benefits they offer, interest rate and charges the user have to pay. Basically a credit card is card made of plastic material essentially having a magnetic strip. This magnetic strip contains a unique card ID that is registered to the card owner. To avoid counterfeiting the card has a hologram on its front side along with other marks.

Credit Cards Offered in Australia

Many types of credit cards in Australia are available from various financial services institutions such as banks and credit unions. Today card schemes are offered by financial institutions based on the needs, life style and credit history of a consumer. Different card levels have different fees, interest rates and rewards. A major portion of all the credit cards in Australia are selected due to the good reward programs of the issuing bank.

Master Card, Diners Club Card, Visa Cards, Debit Cards and American Express Cards all are available in Australia . Types of credit cards in Australia are versatile and customized to suite specific customer needs. Standard credit cards in Australia are issued without submission of any security amount to make sure that borrowed credit will be paid. Usually there two choices in the standard cards; First one is that you can choose card with lower interest rates (can be as low as zero percent in some cases) but you have to pay an annual fee in return of the services. Secondly you can choose to pay relatively higher interest rates without any annual charges. These are called fee-free cards.

Credit Cards with Reward

Some credit cards like Master credit cards, St. George and American Express Credit cards in Australia offer cards with reward programs. St. George in Australia offers the cheapest interest rate in the market.

The rewards can be cash backs; the more money you spend from your card more you get from your cash back reward. There is however a limit to which cash can be earned. Second type of benefit can be reward points, these reward points accumulate as you spend from your card. These points then are returned to gain many types of reward including fuel, jewelry, air tickets etc.

Australian credit cards also offer pre-paid credit cards to offer those who have a bad credit history. In these money is paid before use as the name suggests. These are not times accepted as credit cards and are charges free as the payment is done prior to use.

Specialty credit cards in Australia are offered to cater specific needs of consumer. These include business and student cards. Student cards are useful, as for a person having no prior credit record might have difficulty to get a standard credit card. Student card requires the consumer to be enrolled in a full time study program.