0

I'm in the UK and occassionally I use a card for "non-routine purposes" (e.g. buying a laptop) that can push the card towards its (deliberately low) limit. I would like to get warnings before I get near this limit so that I can pay the balance ahead of time.

My bank offers notifications on purchases but does not seem to offer a "balance related notification". In the UK there is an oAuth-like protocol that alllows third parties like snoop to receive some banking information to help you manage your accounts. Is there a way to get any such services to give me updates when an account goes above a certain level (or an alternative approach).

Att Righ
  • 101
  • 3

2 Answers2

2

You're actually trying to solve the "wrong way" to do large purchases on a low limit credit card.

With a low limit credit card, you can prepay for large purchases.

If your card only has a 200£ limit, but if you need to buy a 3,000£ laptop, just put 3,000£ into the card couple days before the purchase and the excess balance will be available to the card.

This guarantees that you'll never have your card used for more than your limit without your direct input.

** This is from anecdotal experience. When I was in Canada, my card limit was only $300. When I needed to buy a nicer laptop after saving a year, I put couple extra thousand on my card and went out to buy the laptop. I called my card company just to let them know about the large purchase (so it doesn't get auto blocked due to irregular purchasing patterns), but the money was on the card so I didn't have to adjust the limit.

Nelson
  • 1,006
  • 9
  • 12
1

One such app is Mint. It allows you to link accounts and then set up custom notifications. However it appears that this app may not be available to link to UK accounts.

Plum is an app that claims to be one of the more advanced UK budgeting apps that you can use to help you save more and manage your money. It does seem more of a savings and investment app, but does claim to be the best UK alternative to Mint budgeting app, so may also have the notification features.

withplum.com

Michael Richardson
  • 689
  • 4
  • 11