Branch Credit Card Disclosure Smart Rate

Branch Credit Card Disclosure Smart Rate, as filed by First National Bank of Pennsylvania, carries a purchase APR of 11.99%–19.99%, no annual fee, a 12-month 0% opening period and a 24% penalty rate. The purchase rate sits at roughly the 42nd percentile of the 4,587 agreements indexed here.

What the agreement puts on the record

First National Bank of Pennsylvania submitted the terms for Branch Credit Card Disclosure Smart Rate to the CFPB's agreement database; this is what they contain. The filing runs two pages.

The disclosure covers a purchase rate, a cash advance rate, a balance transfer rate, a penalty rate and an annual fee line. No figure appears for a foreign transaction fee.

Zero percent, and then what

A 12-month promotional period at 0% is on the record here — during it, qualifying balances cost nothing to carry.

About 458 agreements in this corpus carry a zero-percent opening rate; this is one of them.

Behind the promotion sits a 19.99% purchase rate. On $1,000 that is in the region of $221 a year once the window closes.

The promotional window is therefore worth something on the order of $221 on $1,000, measured against the same balance priced at the standard rate for the same period.

Pricing the purchase rate

The purchase APR is quoted as a range of 11.99% to 19.99%. That 8-point spread is the whole of what the filing commits to; the method for assigning a rate inside it is not in the document.

Those two numbers occupy very different places in the corpus: roughly the 17th percentile at the bottom and the 42nd at the top.

This is disclosed as a variable rate. The number above is a snapshot: it tracks an index, so it changes without the agreement being amended.

The rate discussed in this section is the go-to rate — the one that applies once the promotional period described below has ended, not the promotional rate itself.

Translating the rate into money

A $3,000 balance left untouched for twelve months accrues about $664 in interest at this purchase rate.

Measured against the 21.99% corpus median, the same $3,000 costs approximately $74 less per year here.

Small balances do not get a proportionally small bill — the agreement imposes a $1.50 minimum interest charge in any month where interest applies.

Treat this as an illustration of what the disclosed rate does, not as a projection of a real account, which would be shaped by payments and by the fees described elsewhere in the filing.

The fee structure

There is no annual fee. That is the common case in this corpus — about 75% of the filings that disclose an annual fee at all disclose it as $0 — so it is a baseline expectation rather than a distinguishing feature.

Taking cash against the card means a cash advance fee of $10 or 3% of the advance, whichever is greater and a cash advance APR of 22.49%. The premium over purchases is 2.5 percentage points. Cash advances also tend to fall outside any grace period, which means interest typically starts on day one rather than at the end of a billing cycle.

Balance transfers cost $10 or 4% of the amount transferred, whichever is greater up front and then accrue at 11.99%. Transferring $2,000 would cost roughly $80 at the door.

When a payment is late

A penalty APR of 24% sits in this filing, applied when the account falls into default as the agreement defines it. Against the 794 filings here that disclose one, that is roughly the 45th percentile.

Measured in money, moving from 19.99% to 24% costs an extra $150 or so annually on $3,000 — a far larger number than any single late fee.

$25 is the disclosed ceiling on a late payment fee, placing it near the 32nd percentile of the set.

Paying in full

Purchases carry a 21-day grace period: pay the statement in full inside it and the purchase rate never applies. That is shorter than the 25-day corpus median.

Where interest applies at all, the filing bills at least $1.50. On a tiny balance that floor can dwarf the rate itself.

The issuer's other agreements

First National Bank of Pennsylvania has 5 agreements indexed on this site. The issuer's own range is 21.49%–22.49%. At 19.99%, this agreement is dearer than 0 of its siblings.

The limits of this document

This page cannot tell you a foreign transaction fee, because the filing's disclosure table as read does not contain it.

What this analysis can address is bounded by the filing: rates, fees and the terms around them. Everything a card issuer might advertise — rewards, benefits, bonuses, who qualifies — falls outside the document and outside this review.

Where the authority sits

The original filing, 2 pages long, is linked on this page and should be read before any figure here is acted on. It is also a snapshot: issuers refile as terms change.

In short

The pricing here is middling by the standards of the index — 19.99% on purchases is near enough to typical.