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The Mercury Credit Card won’t cost you anything upfront, as there’s no security deposit required (like there is with secured credit cards), and there’s no annual fee.
The other good news is that balance transfers, foreign transactions, and cash advances are all available. You also get credit reporting to all three major credit bureaus, and there’s even a cashback rewards program (although not much information is available about this).
Quick Review
The Mercury Credit Card is an unsecured credit card (meaning there’s no security deposit requirement) touted as a solution “to give hard-working, middle market consumers access to a better credit card, at a reasonable price.” The fees are low, but the APR is higher than you might expect from a mid-tier credit card at 28.49%–30.49% (variable).
The issuer’s website doesn’t give many details about the card, so we contacted the customer service team, who told us that they have a cashback rewards program (although it’s not clear whether this is available to all cardholders). Customer service also told us that they report to all three major credit bureaus, making this an ideal card for building credit.
We’ve seen other cards with lower fees and better benefits that we prefer for holders of fair credit scores, but we still think the Mercury Credit Card is a reasonable deal. So if you’ve received a prequalified mail offer, it might be worth responding.
Mercury Credit Card Important Details
Basic Card Details
- Credit card issuer: First Bank & Trust
- Annual fee: $0
- Regular APR: 28.49%–30.49% (variable)
- Grace period: 23 days
- Credit limit: Not specified
Additional Information
- Cash advances are available.
- Foreign transactions are available.
- Balance transfers are available.
- Reporting to all three major credit bureaus.
- Free FICO credit scores.
- Authorized users are allowed (free of charge).
- $0 fraud liability for unauthorized use.
- Mastercard® benefits (e.g., ID theft and fraud protection and 24-hour assistance with lost or stolen cards).
- Payment protection plan available.
Mercury Credit Card Feature Breakdown
In this section, we’ll look at some of the most important features of the Mercury Credit Card.
Fees
- Annual fee: $0
- Cash advance fee: $10 or 5% (whichever is greater)
- Balance transfer fee: $5 or 4% (whichever is greater)
- Foreign transaction fees: 0%–3%
- Late/returned payment fee: Up to $41
Cards for fair credit tend to have lower fees than cards for lower credit scores. The Mercury Credit Card has no annual fee, account-opening fees, or monthly fees.
Interest Rates
- Purchase APR: 28.49%–30.49% (variable)
- Cash advance APR: 28.49%–30.49% (variable)
- Balance transfer APR: 28.49%–30.49% (variable)
- Minimum interest charge: $0.50
If you don’t pay your Mercury Credit Card balance in full each month, you’ll be charged interest. The interest you’ll pay each year is called your APR (“annual percentage rate”). The Mercury Credit Card has a notably high APR, so it may be an expensive credit card to carry a balance on.
Grace Period
The Mercury Credit Card gives you a grace period of 23 days (beginning on the first day of the new billing cycle). The grace period allows you time to pay your bills in full without racking up interest charges.
If you pay off your balance in full by the due date, your purchases during the grace period won’t accumulate interest. However, if you carry a balance from previous billing cycles, you’ll have to pay interest on any charges you make to your card during the grace period.
Rewards
The Mercury Credit Card website doesn’t give any information about a rewards program, but their customer service team told us that there is in fact a rewards program available. They told us that you get a point for every dollar you spend and that you can then turn these points into statement credits for lowering your outstanding balance.
However, they didn’t tell us whether rewards are available to all cardholders or what each point is worth. It’ll likely be $0.01 per point, which would be equivalent to a fairly standard 1% cashback rate, but this isn’t certain.
If you receive an offer from Mercury Credit Card that doesn’t include details about rewards, contact the issuer to find out more. If they’re not offering you a comprehensive, competitive rewards program, consider looking for a better deal.
Benefits
The benefits you get with the Mercury Credit Card are:
- Free FICO scores: This means you’ll be able to easily monitor your credit-building progress.
- Zero fraud liability: This means the credit card issuer won’t hold you responsible for transactions not authorized by you.
- Mastercard® ID theft protection: This includes TransUnion credit report monitoring and dark web monitoring to check for misuse of your personal information (e.g., your social security number and your credit or debit card information).
- 24-hour assistance if your card is lost or stolen: This gives you an emergency phone number to report your card lost or stolen and request emergency card replacement as well as emergency cash advances.
- Discounted airport concierge services: This gives you 15% savings on Mastercard® airport meet-and-greet services.
- Payment protection plan: Mercury Credit Card’s customer service team told us that they have a payment protection plan you can join. This kind of program usually costs less than $1 for every $100 you have in debt and allows you to cancel some of your debt in case you’re unable to repay them for reasons outside your control (e.g., losing your job, becoming disabled, or needing to go to the hospital).
These kinds of rewards are standard across Visa® and Mastercard® credit cards.
Cash Advances
A cash advance is when you use your credit card to withdraw money from an ATM. You can make cash advances with the Mercury Credit Card.
There’s a cash advance fee of $10 or 5% of the transaction amount, and the cash advance APR is the same as the purchase APR at 28.49%–30.49% (variable). Note that cash advances don’t benefit from a grace period, so interest will be calculated from the day you make the withdrawal.
Balance Transfers
A balance transfer is when you move debt from one credit card to another. If you need to consolidate credit card debt, a good solution is to look for a credit card that allows balance transfers, and ideally has a low balance transfer fee and balance transfer APR.
While the Mercury Credit Card has a standard balance transfer fee of $5 or 4% of the total transfer amount (whichever is greater), the balance transfer APR is the same as the purchase APR—a high rate of 28.49%–30.49% (variable)). Because of the high interest rate, we don’t recommend this card for balance transfers.
Foreign Transactions
Foreign transactions are available on the Mercury Credit Card. However, there’s a fee equivalent to 0%–3% of the transaction amount. (The exact fee amount is given on your pricing schedule when you receive your Mercury card.)
Many credit cards that allow foreign transactions charge fees equivalent to 1%–3% of the transaction amount, whereas others don’t charge a foreign transaction fee at all. If you plan to use your credit card abroad on a frequent basis, consider looking for a credit card that will guarantee fee-less foreign transactions (like all Capital One credit cards).
Credit Limit
The Mercury Credit Card issuer doesn’t advertise what credit limits it offers. Reports online claim that you can get an initial credit limit of $500–$2,500, but this isn’t guaranteed. The Mercury Credit Card customer service team couldn’t give us any more details; they told us only that it varies from cardholder to cardholder.
However, they did tell us that Mercury Credit Card may increase your credit limit further down the line if you use your card responsibly. However, you won’t be able to request increases yourself; Mercury Credit Card will carry out periodic reviews to decide whether you’re eligible for a credit limit increase.
Credit Reporting
Credit reporting is an important part of credit building, as your credit report is based on the information your lenders send to the credit bureaus. Fortunately, the Mercury Credit Card reports to all three major bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion). This means you can build credit with all three bureaus.
Credit Building
Because the Mercury Credit Card reports to all three major credit bureaus, it’s great for credit building. However, you must keep up with your monthly payments; your credit score may suffer if you don’t pay your bills on time.
Credit Score Requirements
The Mercury Credit Card website doesn’t mention any credit score requirements. Their website says the following:
There are about 75 million Americans in the “middle market” with FICO scores ranging between 575 and 675, and … the Mercury Mastercard is designed to give hard-working, middle market consumers access to a better credit card, at a reasonable price.
This implies you have a better chance of getting approved for the Mercury Credit Card if your FICO score is around 575 or above—in other words, if it’s around the threshold for fair credit scores or better.
When we contacted the customer service team to get more information about the credit score requirements, they told us that you could still receive an offer and be approved even if you have bad credit. So it seems that even bad credit holders could be eligible in some cases.
Application and Approval
If you’ve received a Mercury Credit Card offer in the mail, you can respond online by going to the website and entering your reservation number along with the last four digits of your Social Security number. Unfortunately, if you haven’t received an offer in the mail, you can’t apply.
You may get a credit check when you do your application, and the Mercury Credit Card customer service team told us that they may also sometimes consider other metrics to do with your finances or income, for example (although they weren’t specific about this and said that this varies from one applicant to another).
Managing Your Account
You can log in and manage your Mercury Credit Card online—including making payments. Alternatively, there are Android and iOS apps you can download.
Payments
As well as making payments from your online account, you can make payments online without signing in.
You can also send payments by mail. Include your name (as it appears on your account) and the last 4 digits of your credit card number with your payment, then send it to the following address (allowing 7–10 days mailing time):
Card Services
PO Box 70168
Philadelphia, PA 19176-0168
The overnight payment address is:
Lockbox Services
Box #70168
400 White Clay Center Dr
Newark, DE 19711
Alternatively, you can pay your Mercury Credit Card bill by phone anytime by calling (866) 686-2158 (or +1-706-494-5025 for the International Collect number).
We asked the customer service team whether payment due dates are flexible, and they said that your due date is usually set according to the time you apply for the card. However, they said that you may be able to change the due date if the one you’re allocated is too inconvenient, so there may be some flexibility.
Customer Service
If you need help with your Mercury Credit Card, you can contact customer service by phone at (866) 686-2158.
You can also write to them at (including your name and the last 4 digits of your account number in your correspondence):
Card Services
PO Box 84064
Columbus GA 31908
Lost or Stolen Cards
If your Mercury Credit Card is lost or stolen, call Mastercard Global Service™ at (800) 307-7309 to report it. They can also help you with emergency cash advances and emergency card replacement.
Should You Get the Mercury Credit Card?
FinanceJar Verdict
We like quite a few of the features you get with the Mercury Credit Card, but because of its high APR and ambiguous rewards program, it isn’t among our top credit card choices for fair credit holders. For even better deals, we recommend looking at the many other no-annual-fee credit cards that are available for all credit score ranges.
If you’re toward the bottom of the “fair” credit score range (e.g., if your score is around 580), your options could be more limited. In this case, you can consider secured credit cards. These require a security deposit, but they’re relatively easy to qualify for, so there’s less risk that you’ll get a hard inquiry on your credit report (costing you points from your score) and end up being rejected for a card.
Who is this card for?
- People who have received a prequalified offer: You can only apply for the Mercury Credit Card if you’ve already received a prequalified offer in the mail. If you have received an offer, you’ll have a good chance of getting approved when you apply.
- Borrowers who don’t want to pay a security deposit: The Mercury Credit Card requires no security deposit, and you won’t pay any fees just for the privilege of having it in your wallet (only if you miss payments or use certain features like balance transfers or cash advances). So even if you get a Mercury Credit Card and never use it, there’s no harm in applying if you’re willing to accept the short-term effects of a hard inquiry on your credit report.
- Fair credit holders: Although you may be able to get the Mercury Credit Card if you have bad credit or no credit, the card is most suitable for people with fair credit. If you’ve received a mail offer and hold a fair credit score, you can consider the Mercury Credit Card as one of your options. If you’re approved, you can then use it to work towards an even better score and more lucrative credit card offers.
Comparable Cards
To decide whether the Mercury Credit Card is right for you, take a look at how it measures up against other cards that cater to lower credit scores.
