OneCard is a new credit card launched by FPL Technologies (a new age fintech) in collaboration with IDFC First Bank. The USP of OneCard is its metal form factor. This card features a minimalist design thus looks very premium and upmarket.
However, let me put it upfront, OneCard credit card though looks very upmarket and has a premium feel, but it is an entry-level credit card. Thus, this card will not interest someone interested in the points and miles game, free lounge access or upgrades. OneCard credit card targets users, who are looking for a credit card with good user experience and simple reward redemption options.
Let’s dive into details of the card, right from how to get the OneCard credit card to user experience.
OneCard Credit Card
Fees and Eligibility:
- Zero joining fee and annual fees i.e. Lifetime free credit card
Rewards and Benefit:
- Joining and recurring benefits:
- None
- Off late, the company is offering 5000 reward points as joining bonus. i.e ~INR 1000.
- Reward Points:
- 1 Reward points on every INR50 spent. 1 Reward point = 0.10 paisa (0.2% reward rate) on statement credit. Reward points on all transactions including utilities and fuel, however, no reward points for wallet load.
- Accelerated Reward Points:
- 5x reward points on Top 2 spends categories every month. (1% reward rate)
- Other features
- Never expiring points
- Reward points even on fractional spends
- In-app, on the go redemptions
- Forex markup of 1%
How to get OneCard Credit Card?
You need to install OneScore app and join the waitlist. They have gamified the waitlist i.e. you get tokens on referring friends, adding your details such as PAN, bank account statements etc. These tokens can then be used to jump up the waitlist or directly get the card, based on a lucky draw sort of thing. While the waitlist concept is quite interesting, it’s a way to create hype and I would say OneCard has succeeded quite a bit in it.
What I understand is they won’t reject any application ever. That is if your credit score is below their threshold, you remain on the waitlist. Once your credit score improves, your card will be approved.
I enrolled in the waitlist even before I pulled my CIBIL in the app and frankly, my waitlist didn’t move at all for weeks. However, once I pulled my CIBIL score, just within a couple of days I got the OneCard invite directly, even though I was well above 10K in the waitlist. Maybe my score played some role here.
Tip: Even you don’t want to apply for the OneCard credit card, download the OneScore app. It gives you credit reports from Experian and CIBIL for free every month.
OneCard Credit Card: Onboarding Experience
To be honest, this is where OneCard credit card excels. The onboarding experience was seamless. Once I had the invite, I just filled in some basic details and clicked a selfie, that’s it and my card was ready. However, I don’t understand why they need my bank account number for a credit card application?
The virtual OneCard credit card was ready to use within minutes and the physical metal arrived a couple of days later.
I had recently applied for Amex Platinum Travel credit card, which involved sending my documents via email and SBI Simply Save, which also involved sharing my documents via WhatsApp. However, for OneCard, I didn’t share even a single document. That’s quite awesome, I would say.
Further, I believe that OneCard does a soft pull on CIBIL (i.e. it doesn’t impact the credit score) as they anyways have your latest CIBIL report. The reason I say so whenever there is an enquiry on my CIBIL account, I get a notification from them. However, this time I didn’t get any notification. I will confirm this in a couple of weeks when I get my latest CIBIL report.
My experience using OneCard
The card is heavy compared to other plastic cards and it does feel premium to hold. I did a couple of transaction on the card; just to experience the app. Transactions reflected instantly in the app along with the number of points for each transaction. One of the cool thing in the app is it tells the spend category against each transaction. Thus, it helps in planning for the 5x rewards.
Should you get this card?
Well, on the positive side, the onboarding is seamless and OneCard app is intuitive and very easy to use. Knowing how many reward points you earned against each transaction is certainly a plus. Further, the in-app rewards redemption appears promising, though I haven’t used it yet.
On the negative side, the default reward rate (just 0.2%) seems way to low, probably the lowest in the industry. To be honest, as of now no real benefits of holding the card apart from showing off a metal card to your friends.
So should you apply for this card? To be honest, this card has more of a novelty factor rather than a utility factor at the moment. I applied for this card for 3 reasons, lifetime free, metal form factor, and lastly hoping that once this card gains scale one may expect good partner offers/redemption options.
Have to got the OneCard credit card or are in the waitlist? Please do share your experience in the comments below.
Disclaimer
In the interest of full disclosure, Credit Cardz may earn a referral bonus for anyone that’s approved through some of the links in this post. However, opinions and views expressed here are of the author's alone and not those of the bank, credit card issuer, or anyone else and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.
Hi
I had just downloaded the app on my phone since new applications were on hold I didn’t get any chance to wait
After a week or two I was directly invited without being added in the waitlist
And within 10 mins the application was approved maybe because my CIBIL score was great
Very bad service I had applied one card ,got a message approved reservation no 3LXV4JMPAO but no information about this
Hi Arunkumar
Hey, loved the article! I wanted to know if you give me any information on credit card for students?
Hi Chaitanya,
For a student, i am assuming one would have no income documents. In that case there are only 2 ways to get credit card.
1. Add-on card on one’s parent or elder siblings.
2. Secured credit card in-lieu of fixed deposit with the bank. I did write about secured credit cards on my blog here
https://creditcardz.in/best-credit-cards-against-fd-in-2020/
You may also consider, Kotak 811 #DreamDifferent secured credit card. Detailed review here:
https://creditcardz.in/kotak-811-dreamdifferent-review/
For 811 #DreamDifferent the entire process can be completed online from Kotak’s app.
To be honest, this card has more of a novelty factor rather than a utility factor at the moment.
I loved and totally agree to this opinion of yours, Harsh.
I had downloaded the Onescore App in June to see the kind of check they do with Experian. (Wait list had ended by then) That was soft check. My score was 824. I deleted the App after checking the score because I don’t need it as I’ve one year Cibil subscription. The next evening I got a message from OneCard that my card had been approved. I installed OneScore App completed the process and the OneCard is active. The moment I entered my PAN in OneCard App (while applying for the card after getting invite), there was a hit done by IDFC First Bank on my Cibil. This is hard check.
Hi,
In my case, there was no hard check. Given that my CIBIL report got refreshed just a couple of days back, there is no enquiry in the month of August.
So maybe since, OneScore app didnt fetch your CIBIL score, they did a hard check on you. In my case, since they fetched my report and thus obviously know my credit score they didnt perform a hard check.
Is applying for all these lifetime free cards a bad idea? Would it have any impact on the credit score?
Not at all. Infact these cards increase your available limit with credit bureaus. So lets just say someone has only one card with 2lakh limit and the person uses 1.5lakh every month, limit utilisation will be 75%.
On the other hand, if the same person has 1 card with 2L limit and say 2 more LTF cards, with 2L limit each. Even if these cards are not used frequently, the limit utilisation will be only 25% . This helps the credit score.
Hi i have a good cibil score but den to i m in wait list should i wait for approval or not
OneCard now has on-tap approval. So once you apply, they check your Cibil and process your application (which may take upto 10 days).
My OneCard is approved without any bank details. Only Selfie and RAN number (Without aadhar number) but I’m from Tier3 city of west bengal.
Got a call from OneCard, I told them Problem. They send me Address Change form. I filled and send through email. after 15days I was able to get virtual card within a minutes. and Got Physical card within 3days.
My expriance-
CIBIL hard Enquiry- NO
Account Added to CIBIL- NO (Big Issue)
Card Looking Primium for showups- YES
Reward Rate- VERY BAD
Hi Harshvardhan, a different question. How do you keep your cards. I am in search of good card holders but couldn’t get a satisfactory case.
hey,
I am using an old visiting card plastic box to keep my cards. I keep 2-3 cards in my wallet. Those are my primary cards. Others I just keep them in a plastic box.
There is many serious issue-
1-Too much card transaction decline,even inr 2000-usd 20 saying we were not expecting.
2- If limit available then also they are rejecting card, and when we contact they will force us to pay remaining payment before due date.
3- There is no 24X7 customer care so called…
Even I heard about these issues recently. Try contacting them on Twitter, they seem to be more responsive there.
I have applied since 30th May’ 21. Since that day the app states that We Have Reserved Your Card. My CIBIL score was also good. Sent email to them but they keep repeating same thing that “We are currently moderating the issuance of cards at the moment. Once you reserve your card, you will be notified in the app as soon as we are ready to issue it”.
Any other card would have come within 7 days.
No use of card, unable to get no cost emi on amazon, flipkart or any other e commerce site.
Card does not work with pinelabs swipe machines.
There is no use.
Don’t get into their referal marketing trap, they will refuse to give you rewards for reference later on.
Here’s what they told me on my referal:
Hi Aditya,
Greetings from OneCard!
In response to the preceding email under ticket id 1254577, we tried contacting you on your registered no. however we missed the opportunity to talk to you as there was no response from your end.
We want to let you know that your referral has entered an invalid referral code—not your genuine referral code.
Actual Referral Code – ADITYA1295
Referral Code Punched by Harsha – Aditya1295
As a result, the application for your friend was not processed with your recommendation.
We regret having to let you know that we are unable to apply the referral bonuses to this reference.
We appreciate your patience and understanding in this matter.
Thanks & Regards
Muskan
Customer Experience Team
Team OneCard.
Good day, everyone! Three months have passed since I last used this card; it is now utterly useless. I made a deposit of approximately 5,000 thousand INR to initiate the account and have been issued a credit limit equivalent to that amount. It seems to be a debit card. In addition, there were numerous fees, which implies I am required to pay additionally approximately 1,500 rupees per month. Having now terminated the account with cancellation charge around 958 INR, I am having difficulty retrieving my deposit and they stated a lot lies and difficulties. I am happy to get in touch with RBI effective customer grievance redressal on this matter and i will. The service is completely pointless, and the customer service messaging system is a joke.
Pointless to use this card.
Good day, everyone! Three months have passed since I last used this card; it is now utterly useless. I made a deposit of approximately 5,000 thousand INR to initiate the account and have been issued a credit limit equivalent to that amount. It seems to be a debit card. In addition, there were numerous fees, which implies I am required to pay additionally approximately 1,500 rupees per month. Having now terminated the account with cancellation charge around 958 INR, I am having difficulty retrieving my deposit and they stated a lot lies and difficulties. I am happy to get in touch with RBI effective customer grievance redressal on this matter and i will. The service is completely pointless, and the customer service messaging system is a joke.