The Bendigo Bank offers two types of credit cards, the Basic Black MasterCard, the Bendigo Gold Card and the Bendigo RSPCA card and the Bendigo Red Free Days MasterCard. They are offered by Bendigo bank with the card processor being MasterCard. The Basic Black MasterCard is a low interest credit card and the Bendigo Red Free Days MasterCard is a rewards card.
Bendigo Bank is the consumer division of an Adelaide based commercial bank the Bendigo and Adelaide bank.
The cards charge a $45 annual fee, apart from the gold card which charges $85.
With the Bendigo Red Free Days MasterCard is a rewards card. With both the red and gold cards all card holders are automatically put on to the rewards program which is a points based system with every dollar spent on the card earning a point. Points can be redeemed for rewards after a sufficient balance has been built up. With the RSPCA card there is an option to donate rewards points to charity. There are a number of partners who can award up to ten points per dollar spent.
The interest rate for the red and gold cards is reasonably high for a credit card. The black card is considerably lower. The red and black cards have interest free grace periods of up to 44 days, while the gold card has a grace period 55 days.
The red and black cards are offered by both VISA and MasterCard. The gold and RSPCA cards are only offered by VISA. VISA is the largest credit card company in the world, while MasterCard is the second largest card. Both of them guarantee that there will be a wide acceptance of the cards.
The red card has is a tie in with the Bendigo bank mortgage which gives a 3 per cent discount to the interest rate on the credit card when the mortgage is also taken out. The card works well for a credit card user who is in the habit of paying off the credit balance at the end of every month.
Despite the fact that the low interest card is called a “black” card it is quite unlike the more famous invitation only black cards. It is a very straight forward and cheap card, with one of the lowest interest rates on the Australian credit card market. Additional cards attract no extra charge.
