Credit Building > Argos Card review: is it good for building credit?

Argos Card review: is it good for building credit?

The Argos Card is a credit facility that allows you to shop at Argos, Habitat, and Sainsbury's stores and websites. It offers flexible payment plans that allow you to pay for your shopping over time.

Is the Argos Card a credit card?

No. The Argos Card is technically a credit facility. It can also be called a store card (although not all store cards offer credit) or retail credit card.

You can use it only in Argos, Habitat, and Sainsbury's because, while they are part of the same group, the card is not issued by a card company like Visa, Mastercard, or Amex. This means that it can only run on the Argos internal systems.

A "credit facility" might be confusing, so for simplicity, think of it as a credit card, except you can only use it to shop at Argos, Habitat, and Sainsbury's.

Is the Argos Card good if I have bad credit?

The Argos card could be a decent option if you need help to pay for your Argos, Habitat, and Sainsbury’s purchases and you have bad credit.

The main reason is because it has very low eligibility requirements:

• No minimum credit score;
• No minimum income;
• You just need to be over 18;
• To have lived în UK for at least a year;
• And to have at least two years of address.

Can the Argos Card help me build credit?

It depends. There are a few ways that the Argos Card can help you build credit:

• It appears on your credit report as a Credit Card. This means that it's a line of credit – and any line of credit, if managed well, can boost your credit score.
• If you make repayments in full and on time, it will count towards your credit history and improve your credit rating.
• If you apply online, it runs an eligibility checker first, which only involves a "soft search" on your credit file. This soft check is only visible to you, and it won't impact your credit score. Only when you apply will you trigger a hard check.

However, we don't recommend it as a credit-building tool for a few reasons:

• Its APR is 34.9% per year, which is high. However, there are plenty of credit-building cards with slightly lower representative APRs.
• You don't get an interest-free period except for certain conditions, such as spending at least £50 and paying your entire balance within three months.
• If you apply in-store (which you might be tempted to, especially considering the limited-time offers that Argos sometimes has), your application will trigger a hard credit check without going through a soft check first.
• The credit limit is also fairly low: most people report limits of up to £1000 – although Argos usually increases it to up to £3000 after some time, and if you make all repayments on time.
• And worst of all, especially for a store card, it comes with no rewards or cashback.

In other words, just because you have bad credit and can get this card, doesn’t mean that the Argos Card is a good option to help you build a credit rating.

For these reasons, if you want a credit card but have poor credit, you're better off getting a regular credit-building card like Asda Select or Barclaycard Forward.

Both offer lower APRs, higher credit limits, mobile apps to help you manage your bills and decent rewards programmes.

And if you're serious about improving your credit score, consider downloading a credit-building app like Wollit. Wollit is an app that reports your monthly subscription as loan repayment, helping you build a history of timely repayments without the risk of getting hit with high-interest charges or going over your card limit. It can even report your monthly rent payment to Experian, adding another line in your credit report that shows lenders you're responsible and pay your bills on time.

• Credit Building Tools