17.
Re: Secured credit card!? Mar 10, 2008 1:45 AM
You can be the guarantor for your corporate card, even as a non-resident alien. If you are incorporated in Nevada, you can even be the President or other officer of the corporation as well.
You will need a US mailing address for yourself individually, and it must be a place where you can truly receive mail and have it forwarded to you. I recommend postnet or UPSstore for this. Then you will need to give this address as your address for the purpose of issuing the card requested.
One of the best cards for this is the debit Mastercard issued by Paypal.com. If you set up a US based paypal account for your business, then request the debit Mastercard they issue, making sure you use all the proper US addresses and an email address designated for that account, you should be able to get the card. You will want to connect the card to the bank account of the company in order to raise the limits, but you need not be the bank account signer in order to do this - you just need definitive knowledge of the bank transactions so that you can verify the account according to Paypal's system.
You can also establish real credit history for your company in the U.S. as a non-resident alien. Your business can borrow large amounts ($25k or more) with no personal guarantee, without even a credit check, if you agree to hold the proceeds of the loan on deposit. Then you can make monthly interest payments for a while before returning the deposited loan proceeds to repay the loan. If you pay down the loan balance in the US with USD you make at your US company, those funds will be available on your paypal card.
This builds business credit in real dollar amounts because it can be done and reported to Dun & Bradstreet and Experian Business Credit. You can have more than one account at a time. You can do the same thing with your personal credit, and have it reported to Experian, Trans Union and PRBC.com.
Also, in both cases, the lender will give you the option of refinancing their loan to you, using a BofA or other bank loan or bank line of credit. To get it done, the original lender will post an amount equal to your deposited funds as collateral with the bank. Now you become the source of a big deposit and a cash-secured loan or line of credit for bofa or another bank, a big leg up. See
http://www.creditloader.com/