TL;DR: The Citi secured mastercard is a straightforward offering designed to help you build or rebuild your credit. It doesn’t offer any meaningful rewards or perks, but could be a good option if you already use Citibank for your financial needs.

Secured credit cards are designed for people who the banks consider to be the riskiest borrowers based on their credit score.

Unlike a prepaid card, a secured credit card reports to the major credit bureaus. This gives you the opportunity to build your credit with responsible use.

The Citi Secured Mastercard is designed to help you improve your credit score. This could mean repairing a damaged credit score or building a credit score if you don’t have any credit history.

Unlike the Discover it secured credit card, this card from Citibank provides no rewards for spending money on it. However, it does offer up to $2,500 spending limit depending on how much of a deposit you put down.

This secured credit card requires a $200 to $2500 refundable deposit based on your credit score.

Your security deposit will be held in an account by Citibank for an initial term of up to 18 months. If you use your card responsibly during these 18 months, then Citi may decide to give your deposit back and upgrade your card to an unsecured credit card.

One thing to note about the security deposit is that you cannot use it to pay a balance, but you will get it back if you close your account as long as your balances are paid off.

The Citibank secured mastercard has no rewards to speak of.

It offers “perks” such as $0 Liability on Unauthorized Charges, but so does every other credit card.

For a full list of the Citi secured Mastercard details click here.