As the title suggests, the key feature of Commonwealth’s Low Fee credit card is its annual fee of just $24.

This can be reduced even more so that you pay nothing at all. How? By spending $1000 or more per year on your credit card, which when you think about it is not much at all.

The thing about offering a low fee credit card is that the majority of people who are looking for that feature are most likely going to be looking for low interest rates as well. So when the low fee card is compared to the Commonwealth’s other specialized card (the low rate credit card) it comes off second best due to its high interest rate on purchases ( p.a.*) and cash advances ( pa.*).

If they could somehow combine the two they would have a much more competitive credit card and probably a few more customers to say the least.

It’s a very basic credit card with the only other features being the (up to) 55 days interest free on purchases* and the low balance transfer rate. Commonwealth offers 4.99% p.a. on balance transfers for the first 9 months*, after which it will increase to the cash advance rate of p.a. That’s a jump of over 15% so you’d want to make sure you paid off any balance transfers before the 9 months is up.

To sum things up, the Commonwealth Low Fee credit card is evidence of yet another bank over-compensating for one feature at the expense of another. If you’re strict with your money and as a result are good at paying your bill in full each month then this card could be a good choice. But if that’s not the case then there are other cards that cater for people that are looking for both low fees and interest rates.

See our top credit card picks in the Editor’s Choice category