Saturday, July 14, 2012

Is a Business Credit Card Right for You

By John Walters


Everyone wants a small business loan. If you walked into 100 small businesses and found yourself in a position to speak with the owner of that business, chances are that 95 of them would be able to find some use for a small business loan. It's not always very easy to get one, which is part of the problem. That is truer than ever, with the slump our economy is currently in. Banks can't seem to get on the same page with the rest of the economy, which is crying for some love in the form of business lending. Thankfully, other types of financing, such as business lines of credit or business credit cards, are a bit more readily accessible.

Everyone is familiar with the traditional small business loan, but there are actually quite a few other kinds of business funding. People tend to prefer the traditional small business loan, with the other types of funding somewhere further down the scale. While they each have their own pros and cons, which will appeal to different audiences, lines of credit in general are really popular. Any type of line of credit, whether it be a traditional bank line or a credit card, can be very popular. It really is not hard to see why this is the case.

The reasons that these types of funding, the lines of credit that is, are popular vary and there are many of them. First of all, although the bank or financial institution commits to lend you up to a certain amount of money, you don't pay interest on the whole approval amount at once. Out of that line of credit, you could decide to let it sit and not use it so you don't pay any interest. Interest only accrues once you start utilizing the credit. This way, if you don't have the immediate need for capital, you can use a line of credit or a credit card as a way of preparing for the time when you do need the money. This way you don't incur unnecessary interest or finance charges.

Of course if there was no downside, people would always be trying to get more credit in this manner. The down sides are there too, unfortunately. Nothing is perfect. Unfortunately, there is usually some sort of fee you have to pay upfront with a business line of credit. That wouldn't be the case with a business credit card but those interest rates on business credit cards can seem extraordinarily high.

Also, business credit cards have a slight disadvantage in that you can only spend money on things and in places that allow you to pay with a credit card. Whatever you had planned for the money may not be conducive to a credit card, compared to the freedom you'd get with a business line of credit.




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