Everyone must be hearing the rising NPAs resulting in losses to the financial institutions in India. Although businesses are biggest contributors to the NPAs, it doesn’t mean that defaults by single individuals are not counted.

Even a small default adds upto the loss. This is the reason banks are taking cautious approach and have become strict when granting any type of credit i.e. personal loan, credit card, car loan, etc to individuals. Here strict means eligibility criteria to avail finance has become strict.

Financial institutions now are using innovative ways to evaluate creditworthiness of each and every credit application and prevent frauds. And one such data analysed by lenders is the online behavior.

This includes (to name a few):

• What you tweet on Twitter
• Share or like on Facebook
• What you buy online
• Online utility bill payments and others.

In addition to this financial institutions will continue with the traditionally done credit bureau checks which primarily gives scores to individuals based on their credit worthiness.

However one eligibility factor that would always remain crucial is the applicant’s company (i.e. where he/she works) and income whether salaried or self employed. Low income means lower chances of credit card approval and vice-versa. So even if you were employed earlier but are currently unemployed, the chances of getting credit card will be low. This is because card issuers won’t be able to verify the applicant’s job and salary.

So how to get credit card with no job verification?

There are two easy options for such individuals to get credit card:

• Against FD
• Add-on card

Against Fixed Deposit

This is one of the best option to get credit card with no job verification. You can open fixed deposit with minimum amount as specified by the banks and get credit card against it. This is nothing but a secured credit card.

Here is the table showing list of credit cards against FD:

Some of the advantages of cards against FD are:

• Banks do not check whether you are employed i.e. no job verification or income proof required. So even retired senior citizens, housewives, students can apply for the card.
• There is no credit score checked
• Documents required are minimum
• User gets insurance cover as well

Disadvantages

However with advantages comes disadvantages. Few of them are as follows:

• Money kept in the account gets locked.
• In case of payment default, bank will deduct the money from the FD account.

Add-on card or Supplementary Card

Another option to get credit card with no job verification is add-on card. If any of your family member (children, mother, father or spouse) owns a card and has a good repayment history, then he/she can apply for a credit card in your name. In this case too, there is no credit history check done for primary card holder. This is kind of joint account but in this case credit limit given to the primary owner gets shared with supplementary card owner. Benefits such as usage, reward points, etc.

List of financial institutions offering add-on credit card in India:

• ICICI Bank
• HDFC Bank
• Citibank
• Axis Bank
• Kotak Mahindra Bank and many others.

Since primary account is used for any dues and credit reporting, it is the responsibility of the add-on card owner to use the card honestly. Any poor usage will impact primary card owner and all the dues and interest rate will have to be paid by him/her. In addition to this, credit score of primary owner will be affected negatively.