How to choose a credit card?
A credit card gives you a credit limit you can use anytime, with a grace period during which you pay no interest if you repay in full. Some cards offer cashback or discounts at partner merchants.
Compare the grace period, annual fees and benefits (cashback, interest-free installments) to find the card that fits your style.
- ✓Grace period of up to 56 days
- ✓Cashback and partner discounts
- ✓Limits from 1,000 to 30,000 lei
- ✓Interest-free installments at merchants
Grace period, revolving interest, and score impact
The credit card mechanism is easy to describe and hard to read in an 11-page contract. The bank gives you a limit — say 8,500 lei. You use as much as you want, anytime, without explanation. At the end of the billing cycle (usually monthly), you get a statement and two options: pay the full balance by the due date (21 to 56 days after cycle close, the grace period) and pay no interest, or pay only the minimum (typically 5-10%) with revolving interest on the rest.
Here's the trap. Annual revolving interest on Romanian cards runs 18% to 30%, with effective APR often above 25%. If you pay only the minimum each month, the balance barely moves and total costs balloon on relatively small amounts. A 5,000 lei balance paid at minimum, at 24% APR, can reach over 1,800 lei in interest in the first year alone, without extra repayment.
Interest-free installments at partner merchants (3, 6, 12 months) are real — but the installments come out of your card limit, reducing available credit for other purchases. On Credit Bureau scoring, use below 30% of the limit is considered healthy; above 70% starts hurting your evaluation when you apply for another loan. Paying on time is, as always, the heaviest factor.
Real costs beyond APR
APR covers mandatory costs, but other optional or occasional costs matter too: the early-repayment fee (capped by law, but varies by lender — zero on variable-rate loans), restructuring fees if you face difficulty, contract-modification fees if you change the rate or term, and add-on services like attached credit cards or extended insurance bundles.
Life and unemployment insurance are often optional even though lenders push them as mandatory. Ask explicitly if they can be removed; if so, the APR calculated without them will be lower and the loan effectively cheaper. The National Bank of Romania requires these options to be clearly separated from mandatory costs.
For credit cards, the biggest hidden cost is the grace period: if you pay the full balance by the due date, you pay no interest. If you pay only the minimum, interest applies to the entire balance and the cost becomes significant — sometimes equivalent to an APR of 25–30%+.
How an application affects your Credit Bureau score
Simply comparing offers on Kreditano leaves no mark at the Credit Bureau. There is no inquiry, no score change. Your data is not transmitted anywhere at this stage.
A Credit Bureau inquiry only happens when you actually apply with a lender — that is, when you fill out the application form of the chosen bank or non-bank lender. This is a "hard inquiry" with a slight, temporary impact (usually minus a few points for a few months). If you apply for multiple loans within a short window (14–30 days, depending on the lender), the Credit Bureau may treat them as a single inquiry for the same loan type — by design, to encourage comparison.
Payment history matters most. Paying installments on time raises your score monthly; a single delay over 30 days drops your score significantly and stays on file for years. Before applying for a new loan, make sure you have no active delays and that your debt-to-income ratio doesn't exceed 40% (the National Bank of Romania's regulated maximum for most lei-denominated loans).