Does transferring balances between credit cards affect you credit rating?

Earlier, it was very easy to find credit cards which allowed to transfer balances without any fee what so ever. These credit cards came with 0% intro APR for a specified period like 6, 12, or 15 months. This was used as a goldmine by those with large outstanding balances. They would simply transfer their balances to such credit card and get rid of existing high APR’s. The 0% intro offer would then be exploited by them. Just by paying the minimum balances they would stay in the good books of credit card companies, and when the ‘golden period’ of0% intro APR was nearing its end, voila they shifted their huge balances to another credit card with similar offer.

So, this resulted in loss of revenue for credit card companies in terms of interest rates, but a more disastrous consequence of this process was that the credit card holder was increasingly getting into huge debts.

A major issuer of such no fee balance transfer credit cards, Morgan Stanley with their range of Discover credit cards, took strong exception and withdrew all such offers. Now they decided to take a certain percentage on balance transfers. To counteract such measure the credit card companies now have a different APR for balance transfer, this includes credit card with 0% intro APR. read more from: http://www.credit-card-gallery.com/credit_card_balance_transfer.html