Reviews: Mogo Visa* Platinum Prepaid Card and Mogo platform

We are currently witnessing a profound transformation of the financial world in Canada, as traditional banks are gradually losing ground to online institutions.

These platforms offer many advantages to Canadian investors such as very low management fees, free basic services (Interac, withdrawal and money transfer) and financial products (credit card and debit card, among others) with affordable annual fees.

What’s more, some of these financial institutions offer even more innovative services at reasonable prices. Indeed, we are talking about personal loans and mortgages, tools for building a good credit score and extensive access to competitively priced crypto-currency platforms.

Mogo Financial Institution is part of this trend, offering a wide range of financial products to Canadians.

We will deal with this establishment in the next few lines by first defining its main goals. Then, we will make a detailed analysis of the main financial products offered by Mogo Finance. Finally, we will draw up an assessment of this platform, taking care to explain its main advantages and disadvantages.

Mogo Finance is a Canadian financial company based in Vancouver specializing in monetary loans and personal financial support. This institution has over 1.6 million members across Canada. However, it should be noted that Mogo Finance does not currently operate in Quebec.

The financial services offered by Mogo Finance are numerous. Here is a short overview of the financial products offered:

• Credit score checker
• Fraud Protection through Mogo Protect
• Mogo Visa* Platinum Prepaid Card
• Personal loan
• Mortgage loan
• The Moka savings application
• Buying bitcoin through a specialized platform

Now that we have a general vision of Mogo Finance’s mission, we can proceed to a complete study of the financial products it offers.

Here is a summary of the Mogo Card main features:

The Mogo Visa* Platinum Prepaid Card is affiliated with the Visa cards network. It works differently from a normal credit card in that the user must deposit cash on the card rather than receive credit from the supplier.

This free card has no eligibility requirements and the maximum balance is $10,000. There is also a 2% bitcoin return available on all purchase categories.

Usin this card also reduces the global carbon footprint as each dollar spent will reduce the CO2 output of the Amazon rainforest by one pound.

Finally, this product offers a disclaimer for loss and theft. You will find a detailed explanation of this protection on the linked web page.

The use of this financial product gives you free access to the Mogo Credit Checker as well as the Mogo Protect anti-fraud and identity theft platform. Here is also a table showing the main fees and spending limits for this prepaid card.

Mogo Finance has a partnership with the Equifax credit bureau, which allows its users to have quick access to their credit score. In addition, Mogo Finance has developed an interesting educational section that outlines the main reasons why the credit score may be lowered.

Honourable mention also to the segment on credit rebuilding, which provides a clear and concise picture of the different ways to increase your credit score with concrete examples, such as paying bills on time and respecting your credit limit, while avoiding reaching the maximum spending limit at all costs. Please note that the application is currently only in English. Here is a visual overview of the platform.

It is also important to note that Mogo Finance makes a great effort to make monitoring its credit score entertaining. In fact, it promotes this good practice through monthly competitions that reward the most outstanding users. Currently, deserving users can accumulate up to $200 in bitcoin as noted here.

Here is a summary of the Mogo Credit Construction Loan:

Personal loans offered by Mogo Finance range from $100 to $35,000. The loan is repaid over a period of between 14 days and 5 years depending on the amount owed. Note that the final amount of the loan repayment depends on several separate factors. Here is an exhaustive list of these criteria:

• Place of residence
• Gross annual income (a minimum of $13,000 is required to apply)
• Employment status
• Debt history and past bankruptcies
• The current debt you have accumulated
• Credit score (ideally between 660 and 900)
• The interest rate received
• The length of the payment term

An application is made available to users to track the repayment of their personal loan. Here is a visual overview of this platform which is very easy to use.

Finally, it should be noted that the payment terms and the applicable interest rate are flexible. Indeed, the user can contact Mogo Finance at any time to renegotiate various aspects of their loan.

Also, all personal information collected by Mogo Finance is encrypted and protected by the most secure system. The risks of data theft and identity theft are therefore very low.

Users with a Mogo Finance loan also have free access to the credit score checker and the Mogo Protect platform.

Mogo Finance also offers competitively priced mortgages. In particular, we’re seeing some great deals on 3 and 5 year fixed rate mortgages.

These rates are very attractive compared to what is offered by the major Canadian banks.

Mogo Finance’s 5-year variable rate mortgages also stand out from the competition. The current rate is 1.40% which is slightly lower than what is offered by RBC, BMO and CIBC.

The mobile phone interface is easy to access and gives you an overview of your payments and upcoming transactions. Here is a visual overview of the platform.

Mogo Finance acquired the Moka app in May 2021.

The primary goal of this virtual platform is to help Canadians save and grow their assets. The main interface is very easy to use. Here is an overview.

The primary goal of this virtual platform is to help Canadians save and grow their assets. The main interface is very easy to use. Here is an overview.

Money earning is done quickly by following a simple protocol. For example, if you charge $6.77 to your account or credit card using the Moka application, you will get $0.23 for free.

This is a feature of Moka that rounds up the total amount of the expense. This additional money ranges from $0.01 to $0.99 depending on the amount of the expense and can be used in a variety of ways. Here are some ways to use this amount.

• Investment. The application allows you to invest the money you get in a balanced portfolio.
• Refunds. You can use the earned amounts to pay off debts or loans.
• Online shopping. You can use the amounts collected from Moka and Mogo Finance’s affiliated partners.
• Donation. The money can be donated to charity.

Finally, Mogo offers a platform for buying Bitcoins. It has over 1.6 million users in Canada. Here is a brief overview of the main advantages and disadvantages of this virtual interface.

• Simple and easy to use platform; ideal for crypto currency beginners.
• Quick access to funds through Interac transfers in less than 30 minutes.
• Frequent promos to get money, including by
  referring friends.

Mogo Finance offers its users a free application against identity theft and fraud in partnership with a web platform called “Loans Canada”. The process is simple: just download the platform on your cell phone and enter your personal information. You will receive a notification every time a potential threat is detected. Please note that your personal information is protected and that Mogo Finance and Loans Canada adhere to a very strict policy of transparency and respect for privileged information.

You can read this memo to see the outline of their policy.

The interface is relatively simple to use and the features easy to understand as you can see below. Note, however, that the application is currently only in English.

• Personal loans and mortgages at unbeatable rates with great flexibility in payment terms.
• Excellent, easy-to-use virtual apps promoting financial literacy (Credit Score Checker), financial security (Mogo Protect), savings (Moka) and crypto-currency investing (Mogo Bitcoin).
• Affordable and easy to get prepaid card.
• Using those financial products allows you to rebuild your credit score.

In conclusion, we find Mogo Finance’s financial services offering attractive to Canadian users.

We particularly like the mobile apps because they are simple, clear and inexpensive. The educational component of these interfaces is also very interesting, as it allows users to learn more about personal finance.

Furthermore, we find that Mogo Finance stands out favourably from its competition in terms of personal loans and mortgages. In fact, we find that the current rates, payment terms (loan and repayment) and flexibility of offers are among the best in the country.

Finally, the prepaid card offered by Mogo Finance is a good option for Canadians in financial difficulty, especially when you consider that there are no eligibility criteria or annual fees.

However, there is one major drawback with Mogo Finance: there is nothing for residents of Quebec. We hope that this situation will change in the coming year so that Quebecers can benefit from the wide range of financial products offered by Mogo Finance.