If your credit score is somewhere between 620 and 719, a big-bank card is probably charging you close to twice what a small bank or credit union would.
That’s not a guess. It’s in the government’s own card data, sitting in a spreadsheet most people never open.
What we counted
Every six months the CFPB collects terms from more than 150 card issuers. One field in that survey is the median APR at origination for people with scores from 620 to 719. That’s the rate new cardholders in that band actually got, not the advertised range.
We took the newest file, covering the second half of 2025, and split it the way the CFPB does: plans from the 25 largest issuers versus everybody else.
Big issuers: across 250 plans reporting a rate for that score band, the median was 28.49%. Of those 250 plans, 219 sat at 25% or higher.
Smaller banks and credit unions: across 138 plans, the median was 15.99%. Only one was at 25% or higher. 123 were at 18% or lower.
Same score band, a 12.5-point spread.
Here’s what they don’t tell you
At the big issuers, climbing out of the bottom score band often buys you nothing. Of 124 big-issuer plans that reported rates for both the 619-or-below band and the 620-to-719 band, 89 gave both groups the same median APR. You did the work to climb out of the bottom tier, and the price didn’t move.
The top tier gets a break everywhere, but the gap barely shrinks. Scores of 720 and up: 23.99% at big issuers, 12.75% at smaller ones.
One thing to keep straight: “big issuer” isn’t “bank.” The CFPB’s top-25 group includes Navy Federal, PenFed, BECU and America First, which are all credit unions. Size is the split, not charter.
And it’s worse now than in the file. The Fed raised rates a quarter point in September, and variable card rates followed prime up.
What it costs you
Carry $5,000 for a year at 28.49% and you pay roughly $1,425 in interest. At 15.99% it’s roughly $800.
That’s about $625 a year for picking the card with the famous logo. If you pay in full every month, none of this matters and you should keep the rewards. If you carry a balance, staying put is dumb math.
The move
Check the purchase APR on your last statement. If it starts with a 2 and you carry a balance, it’s time to shop.
Look at the community banks and credit unions you could join, by where you live or work, and compare their card APRs to yours. Each application usually means a hard inquiry, so pick one or two rather than ten. Before you apply anywhere, call your current issuer and ask for a lower rate, especially if your score has climbed. Then plug both rates into our debt payoff calculator to see the real difference.
Know the trade before you switch. Smaller issuers are far more likely to charge a foreign transaction fee, and the rewards are usually plainer. For a balance you’re paying down, a lower APR beats a points bonus. The balance transfer guide covers the other route.
How Candid Yak makes money. Some of the products we write about pay us if you apply or sign up through our links. That never changes our verdict, our rankings, or the numbers in this article. We call a bad deal a bad deal whether it pays us or not. Some brands shown in our comparison tools are placeholder examples while we finalize partner agreements, and we label them as such.