Know which kind of cashback card you are looking at
Cashback is only one part of the price. A card can pay you back generously and still charge you for holding it, or pay you almost nothing and cost you nothing at all. The habit that pays is to read the cashback, then the fees, then the protection, and only then decide.
Two features listed on the same card tell you what the card is for. Chime Card (Secured Visa Credit Card) is listed with rewards and secured, and Varo Believe Secured Credit Card is listed with the same pair of features. Rewards say you earn something back, secured says the card is backed by a deposit you set yourself. Bitpanda is listed as a credit card with a cashback rate and no secured feature, so it sits on a different footing from those two.
If you prefer to see the shortlist before reading further, our cashback cards ranking sets the options side by side using the same terms.
Fees: what you pay to keep the account open
All three cards here are listed with a no annual fee model, so the annual charge to check is €0 for Bitpanda, $0 for Chime Card (Secured Visa Credit Card) and $0 for Varo Believe Secured Credit Card.
A missing annual fee is common rather than special. Across the cards we cover, annual fees run €0 to €167.70, which puts a card with no annual fee at the cheap end of the field. Read the range as a reminder to check the other costs rather than to stop at the headline.
The account behind the card can charge on its own. The Varo account is listed with a monthly fee of $0 and the Chime account with $0. Ask yourself which account the card actually needs, because a fee you understand beats one you discover later.
How the cashback is actually paid
Rates are not comparable until you know what triggers them. Bitpanda is listed with a cashback rate of 1%, a flat style you can estimate from your own spending without reading the small print.
Varo Believe Secured Credit Card pays through offers instead. The rate depends on the merchant offer, and each offer carries a cap that resets each month, so your return follows where you shop more than how much you spend. That suits a shopper who already has favourite merchants.
Chime Card (Secured Visa Credit Card) ties its rate to the plan on your account: Chime Prime members who receive direct deposits each month earn a higher rate in a selected category, and Chime Plus members earn a lower rate. If you are unsure which plan you would hold, budget on the lower rate until the account tells you otherwise.
Protection for the money and for the card
Two kinds of safety sit on the same card, and they come from different sources. Deposit protection covers the cash you keep in the account, while fraud protection covers a card that someone else gets hold of. Check both.
Varo Believe Secured Credit Card is issued by Varo Bank, National Association, a US bank listed with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation as FDIC cert 59190. Its listed benefits add free credit score tracking in the Varo app, no minimum security deposit with the cardholder setting their own spending limit, and free Allpoint ATM access outside the network.
Chime Card (Secured Visa Credit Card) is issued by Chime Financial, Inc. Its listed benefits include Visa Zero Liability fraud protection, SpotMe overdraft protection, an autopay feature and fee free access to a wide ATM network. The Varo Believe Secured Credit Card review and the Chime Card (Secured Visa Credit Card) review set out those terms in full.
Rebuilding credit while you spend
Both secured cards are aimed at readers with a thin credit file or a past marked by poor credit, and both say there is no credit check to apply. That single detail often decides whether you can open the account at all, so check it before anything else.
On the other side, repayment habits do the work. Varo Believe Secured Credit Card is listed as reporting to all the major credit bureaus, and Chime Card (Secured Visa Credit Card) as reporting to the major credit bureaus, so paying on time can build a record with either.
Spending outside the country
Foreign exchange is the quietest cost on a card. Varo Believe Secured Credit Card is listed with a foreign exchange fee of 0% and Chime Card (Secured Visa Credit Card) with 0%. Across the cards we cover that fee runs 0% to 10.38%, a spread wide enough to matter if you travel or buy in another currency.
Currency matters as well. Bitpanda's annual fee is listed in euro, so weigh it carefully against cards quoted in dollars. A modest cashback gain can disappear inside a conversion charge, and the Bitpanda review is a useful place to read the card alongside its own terms.
A short routine you can repeat
Write the fees down first: annual, monthly and foreign exchange, each one labelled with the account type it applies to. Then restate the cashback rule in your own words, because a rate you cannot explain is a rate you cannot budget.
Next, check protection: deposit insurance or none, fraud liability or none, ATM access, and any overdraft help. Then check credit bureau reporting and support. Varo Believe Secured Credit Card lists email, chat, phone and a help centre, and Chime lists phone, chat, email and a help centre, so a disputed fee has somewhere to go.
Last, look at who stands behind the card. Varo was founded in 2015 and Chime in 2012, which tells you how long each has been doing this. When your list is down to a short few, return to the cashback cards ranking and hold your choice against the ranges above.