The Walls Street Journal had an article today about Bank of America Targeting Hispanics. It mentioned that BOA is now offering cards to those with no social security to help them build a credit history. Typically, those with no social security are illegal immigrants.

BOA will consider an eligible candidate as long as they have held a checking account with the bank for three months without an overdraft. The fees (like most subprime cards) are higher than your typical credit card. Cardholders have to pay a $99 fee and get a $500 credit limit. If you pay your balance in a timely fashion, you may get back your $99 deposit in three to six months and be considered for a credit limit increase.

In fact, this is not a new card that Bank of America has. Those with bad credit have always known this card as the 99/500 card. While critics have claimed that what BOA is doing is actually providing a product to people who are voilating the law, I actually it is a very savvy move that addresses an unserved market. I’d rather have BOA, a reputable bank serving this niche than some subprime credit card marketing company. I am actually not surprised at what BOA is doing. If you look at their website, it is probably the most spanish friendly credit card issuer. You can even elect to have your statements in spanish.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 14th, 2007 at 5:36 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.