Credit Building > Zable Credit Card review: decent credit builder but too risky?

Zable Credit Card review: decent credit builder but too risky?

Wollit Team3 minute read · Updated 3rd July 2024

The Zable Credit Card is a credit-building credit card that lets you access your Equifax score straight through your phone. If you haven’t heard of it before, this is because Zable used to be called the Level Credit Card until recently.

It also comes with a virtual card, which means that you don’t need to wait for the physical plastic card to arrive before you can use it.

Other than this, it functions like a regular credit-building card, so let’s see how it compares to the other credit-building options in the UK.

What are the pros of a Zable Credit Card?

Zable has quite a few unique benefits compared to most credit-building cards in the UK:

Slightly higher credit limit: while it depends on your situation, the Zable limit can go up to £1,800. Most credit-building cards have a maximum credit limit of £1,500. This can make it easier to keep your credit utilisation low (the percentage of the credit limit that you actually use), and stay under your credit limit, both important for your credit score.
Fast access: because you don’t need to wait for a plastic card in the mail, you’ll be able to start building credit straight away if you’re approved.
Track your Equifax score: Zable also lets you keep an eye on your Equifax score straight in the app. This saves you from having to pay £14.95 a month to Equifax or signing up for a ClearScore account.
Monthly credit limit reviews: if you stay on top of your payments and pay your card bill on time and in full, Zable might increase your credit limit regularly. This will again improve your credit score.

On top of these benefits, Zable also charges no annual fee or foreign transaction fees. This can be helpful if you travel often or if you recently moved to the UK and want to save some money on currency exchange.

What are the cons of the Zable Credit Card?

Unfortunately, the Zable card is not perfect. It has quite a few downsides as well:

High APR: The Zable Credit Card carries a relatively high APR of 48.9%. Most credit-building credit cards tend to charge a high annual fee, but this is much higher than what you can get. Barclaycard Forward and Asda Money Select, for example, have a representative APR of around 34-35%.
No rewards: the Zable card offers no rewards or cashback. To be fair, most other credit-building cards don’t offer rewards or cashback either, but some do – like the Tesco Foundation card or the Asda Select card.

What do reviews say?

On Trustpilot, one of the largest review sites, reviews for the Zable Credit Card are very positive. It has a rating of 4.6 out of 5, given by almost 5000 customers.

The majority of these praise the app, the ease of use, how fast the application process is, and how responsive the Zable customer service team is. The monthly credit limit review is also a nice bonus.

However, about 7% of reviews also gave it only one star. The main complaint? The app’s security, with many people recently reporting hackers breaking into their accounts and taking money. Many new customers seem to have started to cancel their accounts just to avoid this risk. While Zable seems to refund fraudulent transactions, these are still very concerning. Plus, it’s all too easy for a fraudster to spend as much as they like and go over your credit limit, which will instantly hurt your credit score. Zable does not seem to have a clear plan to publicly address and fix this.

Is Zable worth it?

While the Zable Credit Card offers a very easy-to-use app that saves you a trip to ClearScore if you want to check your Equifax account, we can’t recommend it as a credit-building tool.

Its high APR of 48.9%, its lack of rewards, and especially the recent reports of personal information being leaked and the app not being very secure should give you some pause.

A safer alternative is downloading a credit-building app like Wollit. Unlike Zable, Wollit simply reports your monthly fixed fee subscription as a loan repayment. This directly builds your credit history (the main factor that goes into your credit score calculation) while keeping you safe from the risk of going over your credit limit or being hit with unexpected fees and interest charges. Also, because Wollit is not a credit card, there is nothing for hackers to break into, and there are no fraudulent charges that you need to lose sleep over. Just steady credit building.