A credit cards APR means the Annual Percentage Rate of interest charged. IT is common now for cards to offer a zero-percent initial APR which can be on purchases, balance-transfers or sometimes both. This initial 0% period can either be used to avoid paying any interest on existing borrowing or can be used to make a profit.

For cash advances credit card companies sometimes charge interest on the entire outstanding balance from the date they are obtained if the total balance is not paid in full. A further complication is that cash advances are often charged from the day they are obtained rather than the billing date, and often at a different rate of interest from purchases. Also repayments are often applied to all other transactions before they are applied to cash advances.

One can save paying interest on existing borrowing by transferring the amount onto a new account which has an initial no interest period for balance transfers. This can be a big advantage as by just continuing to make the same monthly repayments the borrowing can be paid down rather than just the interest paid off each month.

Another way one can use such accounts is to obtain “free money”. This is done by using the funds made available on the new account and placing them into a savings bank or other interest-generating system. Occasionally such an approach might even be used for more risky investments such as business startups. It is rumored that the Google company used such funds to buy some of their early hardware setups, and it is known that the movie “Clerks” was funded in this way.

A credit cards APR is one of the big areas one should consider when choosing between competing offers, but other factors should also be taken into consideration. Fees are one such factor, as are rewards such as air miles or cash-back which can be very beneficial.

Want to find out more about Credit Cards, then visit Thomas Goldman’s blog post on Credit Cards APR., plus lots of other related topics.

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