American Pacific Bank Gold Mastercard Review
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Editor's Rating:
 
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| Intro Purchase APR | Regular APR | Annual Fee | Credit Needed |
| N.A. | $35 | Good |
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PROS
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CONS
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A Quick Introduction - The American Pacific Bank Gold MasterCard is one of the two vanilla credit cards issued by American Pacific Bank. The other card is a Classic Visa and this card is a step up from that. However, all it is a basic credit card with no rewards. However, it comes with an annual fee which is not appealing considering most credit cards these days have no annual fee.
No Rewards But Has An Annual Fee - One of the things that really puzzle me is the fact that American Pacific Bank has the audacity to actually charge an annual fee when there are no rewards that come with this card (neither cash back or a reward program). So they soften the blow a little by waiving the annual fee for the first year. But from the second year onwards, you are hit with a $35 annual fee.
The APR is 3% lower than the visa classic at 13.92%. The American Pacific Bank Gold Mastercard gives a 25 day grace period and uses the average daily balance method (including new purchase) of calculating balances.
Application Criteria - When I was reviewing this card, one of the things that struck me was that American Pacific Bank states clearly and comprehensively on their website the criteria for one to apply for this credit card. Not many credit card issuers actually do that. The criteria to get a gold mastercard is more stringent than the visa classic. You need a minimum income off $50,000 or joint income of $70,000, a debt to income ratio of no more than 30% plus others (which you can find on their website). If you read between the lines, that means you need good to excellent credit to be able to get this card
How Does This Card Fare Against Other Similar Cards - It turns out that APB also has a Classic Visa Card. There are a couple of differences. Firstly, the Classic version is a Visa (whereas this card is a MasterCard). The Classic version has a lower annual fee ($18) but a higher interest rate (16.92% vs 13.92% for the Gold version).
More importantly, American Pacific Bank faces competition from mainstream credit card issuers who have lots of credit cards that come with no annual fee. And many of them do not even explicitly state any income criteria. For example, Barclays Bank has their Rewards MasterCard that has no annual fees, comes with rewards and
No Way We Can Recommend This Card - At the end of the day, there is really no way that we would have recommended this card and we didn't. In fact, a card like this (vanilla card with no rewards but charges an annual fee) would not even make it past internal approval today given the competitive nature of the market. But cards like that were quite typical of credit card offerings by regional banks.
Update - American Pacific Bank has been bought by Riverview Bancorp in 20051. Riverview Bank discontinued their credit card line up. In 2009, the FDIC closed down Riverview Community Bank2.
References
1. Riverview BankCorp Acquires American Pacific Bank: Press Release
2. Riverview Community Bank: Fail Bank Report By FDIC