As of November 2023, Cardeo has ceased activity. Existing customers will be contacted about next steps. We’ve kept this review for historical purposes.
Missing a card payment can land you with a late payment fee and even harm your credit rating. Cardeo was a free app that aimed to help you keep on track with payments. But was it worth using, and how did it make money?
What is Cardeo?
Established in 2020, Cardeo was a fintech company that says it aimed to make credit cards fairer for UK consumers. According to Cardeo, 14.5 million people are trapped paying an average of almost £1,000 in credit card interest every year.
Cardeo combined Open Banking data with artificial intelligence (AI) to help consumers who weren’t on track to save on interest and fees while keeping their existing credit cards.
You could manage your accounts, set repayment goals and use automated repayments in the app so you would never forget a credit card payment again.
Eligible customers were also offered Cardeo Credit, which was a flexible line of credit to help cardholders refinance their credit card borrowing to a lower rate, on a rolling basis.
How does Cardeo work?
Cardeo brought together data from all your credit cards into a single view using Open Banking. You could see your total borrowing and spending habits, as well as set personal targets to repay your credit card debt.
Cardeo’s AI calculated the most efficient way to help you meet these targets, by working out the payback time from your current borrowing, interest rates, and spending. Its payment plan offered you the ability to set a repayment budget each month and choose how to allocate your budget against each of your credit cards.
You could choose from 3 repayment options:
Manually. Here, you chose the amount you wanted to pay towards each credit card.
Avalanche method. This showed you your credit cards in order of interest rate, and will focus on paying off the highest interest rate debt first.
Snowball method. This showed you your credit cards in balance order, enabling you to pay off your smallest balances first.
Cardeo took just one monthly payment from you and sent it to your card providers on your behalf, so you didn’t have to manage multiple payments. You could also choose the payment date that suited you best each month.
You could pause or edit your payment plan whenever you needed to, and you could also make extra repayments to your cards in months you had a little extra cash.
Cardeo features
The key features of Cardeo are:
All accounts in one place. Cardeo used Open Banking to unlock your credit card data and enable you to manage all your cards in one place. It also gave you insight on your borrowing and spending.
Target setting. You could use the Cardeo calculator to set a monthly amount or end date to clear your credit cards.
Choice of payment plans. Once you set a target, you could then choose how to split your repayments to make them easier and less expensive. Payment plans could be edited at any time.
Single monthly payment. Cardeo collected a single monthly payment from you and sent it to your card providers.
Flexible repayments. You could to make additional repayments to your cards whenever you wanted to.
Additional products. Cardeo offered deals on a range of products such as mobile phones and car insurance.
How much did Cardeo cost?
The Cardeo app was free to download and use. There were no in-app purchases or charges associated with the service. Instead, Cardeo made its money through affiliate marketing within the app and may have received payments from third parties when you took up a product or deal (such as insurance) in the app.
Who was eligible for Cardeo?
Cardeo was designed to help all UK credit cardholders. You needed to be a UK resident and at least 18 years old.
To create a payment plan, you had to undergo identity verification checks to set up an e-money account. This was the account that received your funds before they were paid to your credit card providers.
What providers worked with Cardeo?
Cardeo connected with most UK credit card providers. Some of the providers included:
Could help you to pay off your credit card debt faster and more cheaply
Flexible repayments
Choice of payment plans that could be changed at any point
Only one repayment to make each month
Free to use for all UK credit cardholders
Cons
Not all UK credit card providers work with Cardeo
You’ll need to be happy managing your cards via an app
Alternatives to Cardeo
If you wanted to ensure you paid off your card balance each month, you could usually just set up a direct debit for each card to pay off the full balance.
At the moment, it was difficult to find any direct competitors of Cardeo in the UK. That meant your main alternative to Cardeo was to use a balance transfer credit card and combine all your credit card debt onto the one card. This could make it much easier to manage as you only had one monthly repayment to make. Plus, if you took advantage of a 0% introductory deal, you’d benefit from interest-free payments for a number of months.
However, there would usually be a balance transfer fee to pay – typically around 2% to 3% of the amount transferred – and if you didn’t clear your balance before the end of the 0% period, you’d start paying interest. To avoid this, you’d need to transfer your remaining debt to another 0% balance transfer card and pay another transfer fee.
Our verdict
If you had multiple credit cards and struggled to monitor and keep up with your different repayments, Cardeo offered a free and easy way to help you manage them all in one place. Plus, you got to choose your own repayment plan to help you pay off your debts faster.
However, Cardeo was less likely to be of use if you only had one or two credit cards to juggle. That’s because it was easy to set up a monthly direct debit yourself which made your repayments on time and ensured you never miss one.
Frequently asked questions
Cardeo connected with almost all credit card providers in the UK. It was working on adding more credit card providers, but this involved getting all UK credit cards compliant with open banking law. You could see a list of the supported cards on the Cardeo website, as well as vote for the cards you wanted most and get notified when they were added to Cardeo.
Cardeo will send you payment reminders to ensure you make your monthly credit card repayments on time. This enables you to avoid extra interest and late payment fees from your card provider. You can also choose to focus on paying off your highest interest rate credit cards first, so that you clear these faster and save money.
Cardeo sent you payment reminders to ensure you made your monthly credit card repayments on time. This enabled you to avoid extra interest and late payment fees from your card provider. You could also choose to focus on paying off your highest interest rate credit cards first, so that you cleared these faster and saved money.
When you made payments through Cardeo, your money was stored in an e-wallet account before being sent to your credit cards. Cardeo partnered with e-money firm Modulr to provide your wallet, and Modulr safeguarded your funds in a separate account. That meant your money was protected if Modulr collapsed. However, your funds weren’t protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).
Cardeo connected to your accounts in an encrypted way using standard and highly secure open banking.
Yes, Cardeo is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as a registered account information services provider.
Yes, Cardeo used open banking to collate all your credit card data.
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To make sure you get accurate and helpful information, this guide has been edited by Liz Edwards as part of our fact-checking process.
Rachel Wait is a freelance journalist and has been writing about personal finance for more than a decade, covering everything from insurance to mortgages. She has written for a range of personal finance websites and national newspapers, including The Observer, The Mail on Sunday, The Sun and the Evening Standard. Rachel is a keen baker in her spare time. See full bio
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