Credit Building > Asda Money Select credit builder card review

Asda Money Select credit builder card review

Wollit Team4 minute read · Updated 4th July 2024

The Asda credit builder card, known as the Asda Money Select Credit Card, is meant to help people with poor or limited credit history improve their credit rating.

It's also one of the few credit-builder cards with rewards. If you're a regular Asda shopper, the Asda Money Select card could help you earn cash back from your shopping while you build up your credit score.

How does the Asda credit builder card work?

The card has a representative APR of 34.90% and a credit limit ranging from £500 to £5,000. How much you'll actually be offered depends on your circumstances–credit history, income, and so on.

This card offers rewards in the form of Asda Pounds, which are stored in a virtual wallet of sorts called "Cashpot":

1% cashback on all Asda groceries, fuel, and other Asda services;
and 0.3% cashback on all other purchases outside of Asda.

On top of this, you can also earn an additional 10% cashback (also in the form of Asda Pounds) by buying "Star Products" and by completing "Missions":

Star Products are items that give you instant rewards. Buy any of these, and you'll get 10% of their price back in your Cashpot. Star Products change constantly.
Missions usually involve shopping and spending specific amounts of money in different areas of the Asda store. You'll have to reach specific targets to earn points. For example, "Buy £20 of fruit and veggies this week to earn £1." Once you finish a mission, you'll get 10% back in your Cashpot.

How do Asda credit builder card rewards work?

Think of the Asda Pounds like cashback, except you get Asda vouchers instead of cash.

Every eligible purchase with the Asda Select Credit Card earns you Asda Rewards, which are paid in Asda Pounds. You'll see them in your Asda Rewards app, which you can link to your card.

Once you earn Asda Pounds, you can transfer them to your "Cashpot", after which you can redeem them as vouchers whenever you want.

However, this means you can only spend your rewards at Asda – great if you're a regular Asda shopper, but less attractive if you usually shop elsewhere.

What are the eligibility criteria for the Asda credit builder card?

To be eligible for the Asda Money Select Credit Card, you need to be:

A UK resident,
18 and over,
And with no history of county court judgment or bankruptcy.
You must also be able to provide Asda with a mobile number and a UK bank account number.

In terms of credit score, there are no specific requirements. Even students and retired people can apply.

Still, to be sure and to limit the hard credit checks on your credit report, you should first use the eligibility checker on the Asda Money website to find out whether you're likely to be approved.

How does the Asda credit builder card compare with others?

The Asda Money Select credit card has some serious pros:

It is one of the few credit builder cards that comes with rewards.
You can also earn points on your day-to-day spending: 1% back on everything you spend in Asda, 0.3% back on all your spending everywhere else, plus 10% on select products.
No annual fee.
And a mobile app.

However, the Asda credit builder card isn't perfect. It also comes with a few cons:

The APR is slightly higher than that of other cards. Barclaycard, for example, has a representative APR of 33.9%.
You may start with a credit limit as low as £250. This can make it easy to go close to or even over the limit, which can hurt your credit score. Ideally, you should stay under 30% of your credit limit, which would limit purchases on this card to £75 a month.
Asda works with TransUnion. This is okay, but TransUnion is the smallest of the three credit reference agencies in the UK. You might benefit less from the credit-building feature than from cards that work with Experian or Equifax.

What do Asda Money Select customers say?

On Trustpilot, one of the largest review websites, Asda Money is rated "Excellent" – with a rating of 4.6 out of 5, received from over 5,000 customer reviews as of May 2024.

More than 80% give Asda Money 5 stars, praising its cashback and the app's ease of use.

However, 9% of Asda Money customers gave it 1 star. Most of these come not from credit cards but from insurance customers. The ones we could find written by customers who used the credit card mainly complained about customer service and how slow it is or how long it took for the card to arrive by post. So you might want to have that in mind when you apply.

Is the Asda credit builder card any good?

The Asda credit builder card is definitely a card you should look into.

The APR is a bit high, but if you plan to pay the balance in full each month—which is the only way to use a credit card to build your credit score—then the rate won't matter. Asda gives you 56 days to pay your purchases before interest kicks in.

Plus, once your credit score improves, you can switch to the regular Asda Money card, a regular credit card with a lower representative APR of 27.9%

The best reason to get the Asda Money Select credit card is its rewards—very few credit builder cards have rewards, especially this good.

In other words, the Asda credit builder card is meant for you if:

you're a regular Asda shopper (since you can't really spend those rewards elsewhere),
have poor credit,
and have other products (loans, bank accounts) reported to TransUnion.

If you want to improve your credit score with all three credit reference agencies (not just TransUnion) or are concerned about the high APR Asda Money Select charges, you should look into a credit-building app like Wollit.

Wollit is not a credit builder card, meaning you don't risk going over your credit limit or paying high interest charges and fees. Wollit reports your monthly subscription as loan repayment, helping you build a history of debt repayments and potentially boosting your credit score in the process.