Question: Hi, does a credit card offering a low interest rate on balance transfers for x amount of months include balances from personal loans as well as other credit cards? Eg: Could I move $8000 owed on a personal loan + $1000 owed on a Visa over to a 0% interest balance transfer credit card for 6 months as a balance transfer? Thanks.

Answer: This is an interesting one, thanks for asking but the answer unfortunately is no. Interestingly we could only find this information on St George’s website:

“Balance Transfers will not be accepted from personal loans, overdrafts, or business, St.George Group or international credit card accounts.”

ANZ, Aussie, CBA, NAB  and Westpac call centre customer service attendents all confirmed that balance trasnfer requests from personal loans and the like would be rejected.

What is possible is paying out the loan with your credit card and then transfering the balance of the credit card to a new 0 or low interest credit card. In this case a life of balance transfer credit card may be the best option. This is of course very risky and we in no way recommend this course of action be taken lightly. It should only be considered by someone with an excellent credit rating who had discussed the probability of being approved for a balance transfer credit card for that amount with a financial advisor or potential lender – this is because if you are not accepted for the balance transfer credit card you would be stuck paying out your personal loan at credit card interest rates.

As with all credit card applications it is important to read the terms and conditions. Many credit card lenders specify that balances must be from competitor banks, building society and credit union cards and that the that the introductory rate on balance transfer credit cards will apply to a balance transferred from either one or two cards only and will read something like this:

“Special Promotion Transfer rate of X% p.a. will apply to any balance transfer amount for up to 2 non-XXXX credit or store cards for the period from the time the balance transfer is made to your account for six complete monthly statement periods, unless the balance transfer amounts are paid off earlier.” ( NB – this particular card is unusual in that the balance transfer period commences from the date of the balance transfer – many treat the first day of the balance transfer period to be the day he card is approved even if the balance transfer process is not completed until a couple of weeks later).

OR

“This special rate is only available to customers who are applying for a new card and request to transfer the balance from a non-XXXXX credit card, charge card or store card. This promotion is only available at point of application. Subsequent balance transfers will be charged at the standard purchase interest rate and will be treated as purchases with no interest free days applying to them.”

As you can see it’s really important to know before you apply whether you can apply for more than one balance transfer for the card.

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