First Progress Platinum Prestige Mastercard® Secured Credit Card review: A low-interest, credit-building option

With the Capital One Platinum Secured Credit Card, you have the opportunity to get the same $200 minimum credit line as the Platinum Prestige card, albeit with a posibly smaller $49 up to $200 security deposit. Plus, Capital One can automatically review your account for positive credit activity after six months and may increase your limit. If you want to increase your limit on the Platinum Prestige, you’ll need to put down more of your own funds toward the security deposit, making the Capital One Platinum Secured a much more lenient choice for boosting your credit limit.

Remember that the Capital One Platinum Secured comes with a much higher variable APR, almost twice the Platinum Prestige’s. However, the Platinum Secured also carries  no annual fee (See Rates & Fees), and you should strive to pay your balance in full each month anyway. If you carry a balance often, the First Progress Platinum Prestige may be a better fit, but the Capital One Platinum Secured is a safer, more lenient choice.

The Discover it® Secured Credit Card is one of the few secured cards to earn cash back in multiple categories. You’ll earn your highest rates of cash back on gas station and restaurant purchases up to a combined $1,000 quarterly spending cap before dropping back to the base earning rate of 1 percent. You can also earn 1 percent cash back on all other purchases. This earning potential and lack of annual fee sets the Discover it® Secured Credit Card apart from the First Progress Platinum Prestige, which costs more and lacks additional bonus categories. Discover will also automatically review your account for an upgrade to an unsecured card after seven months.

If you can use the Discover it® Secured Credit Card responsibly and can qualify, it’s a more rewarding and cheaper stepping stone to unsecured credit cards than the Platinum Prestige card. 

Those who want to go on building credit without distraction may find the First Progress Platinum Prestige secured card a solid option. You don’t have to worry about welcome bonuses or features that encourage spending on big purchases. And because you earn rewards on your credit card payments, the card incentivizes healthy credit card habits. 

A credit card’s interest rate is a key feature to consider when choosing what is best for you. The ​​First Progress Platinum Prestige card’s 15.24 percent ongoing rate is very low, which can work in your favor if you occasionally carry a balance. While you don’t want to make it a habit, it’s nice to know that the penalty won’t be as high as with other cards.

A student or credit-building card’s cost has a large influence on its overall score. 

Students already face a ton of expenses, so extra card costs are best avoided if possible, and people with limited or damaged credit tend often find the cards they can qualify for are much pricier than traditional credit cards designed for people with a good or better credit score. 

We compare a card’s total cost, including any annual fees, account activation fees, monthly fees and more against the total cost of other cards in this category and assign each card a score based on its affordability. We also factor rewards-earning potential into our assessment of a credit-building card’s total cost, subtracting a card’s expected earnings from the sum of its fees. 

To get a sense of a card’s rewards-earning potential, we estimate its average annual rewards rate and average annual earnings based on the most popular spending categories (as covered in the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer spending report). 

However, we use a slightly lower spending assumption ($300 per month or $3,600 per year) to estimate average earnings, assuming students and credit-builders will start out with a lower credit limit, will want to keep credit utilization low and will focus primarily on small purchases they can easily pay off.

Given the many costs students face — from textbooks to laptops — the presence of an introductory APR on purchases or balance transfers also plays a role in a student card’s score.

A card’s APR is also a major factor in its credit-building score. Each card’s average APR is compared against the average APR of other cards in the category, and the cards with lower-than-average APRs receive a higher rating. 

Though high APRs are hard to avoid when you’re just starting out or working on your score, credit-builders should strive for as low an APR as possible since they’re likely to either be new to managing cards or trying to establish better financial habits and avoid falling into debt.

Along with a credit-building card’s cost, our rating system takes into account how easy the card makes it to build credit. To assess this, we evaluate its credit limit potential and minimum deposit requirement.

Unsecured cards with a high starting credit limit and secured cards that let you put down a large deposit and get a matching high credit limit will score the highest according to our “Ease of building credit” rubric and are more likely to appear on our list. 

This is because a high credit limit can make it much easier to keep your credit utilization low, a primary credit-building factor that makes up 30 percent of your FICO credit score. 

Secured cards have a slight advantage in this category since the maximum credit limit on a secured card tends to be much higher than the typical starting credit limit on an unsecured card that’s available with a bad or fair credit score. However, unsecured credit-building cards have the upper hand in another key aspect of building credit: accessibility. 

Cards that carry no or a low deposit requirement can also receive a high score according to our “Ease of building credit” rubric since these cards offer a lower barrier to entry than secured cards that require you to put up hundreds of dollars in an upfront deposit. 

Indeed, some users may prefer to pay a non-refundable $50 annual fee while they work on their credit score than tie up hundreds in a refundable security deposit.

We also evaluate each card’s benefits based on how useful they are for students or someone looking to build a positive credit history and save money on everyday spending. 

We consider the inclusion of a rewards program, student-centric perks and access to your credit score or a credit monitoring service of prime importance, along with the ability to prequalify for the card with only a soft credit pull and a clear path to increase your credit limit or graduate to an unsecured or full-fledged rewards card.

Cards that include these benefits are likely to score higher according to our credit-building card scoring rubric.

No. First Progress performs a soft pull on your credit report rather than a hard pull, meaning it will have no impact on your credit score and will show no record of an inquiry.

First Progress, which Synovus Bank issues, usually offers credit limits of $200 (minimum deposit) to $2,000, but it will depend on the amount of your first security deposit.

Every month, First Progress reports your credit card usage to each of the three credit bureaus (Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax).

Yes, it is possible for First Progress to increase your credit limit in the future without requiring you to make an additional deposit. However, if you must pay an additional deposit, the best alternative option would be to apply for an unsecured credit card that offers better terms or offers additional benefits to cardholders.