AU NOMO Credit Card

Quick verdict: A secured card built on a fixed deposit — no income or credit history required — that still earns like a proper rewards card, headlined by a 0.99% foreign-currency markup that even many premium unsecured cards can't match. At ₹199 + GST (not lifetime-free) it punches above its fee for a credit-builder who also travels. The one thing to be clear on up front: your money sits in an FD as collateral.

The AU NOMO — "from fixed deposit to flexible credit" — is a secured card, meaning it's issued against a fixed deposit you place with AU Small Finance Bank rather than against your salary or CIBIL score. That makes it a natural fit for thin-file applicants, students and anyone rebuilding credit. What's unusual is that AU didn't strip it down to a bare credit-builder: it earns points, opens with a welcome bonus, runs a spend milestone, and — most surprisingly — carries a forex rate low enough to make it a genuine travel card. Your FD stays yours and keeps earning interest; the card simply borrows against it as a limit.

What it earns

• 2 reward points per ₹100 on retail spends — about 0.5% back at the card's 25-paisa point value.
• 1 point per ₹100 on utility and insurance spends.
• 500 welcome points credited on your first transaction.
• A milestone bonus: 500 points on ₹25,000 of spend in a quarter, doubled to 1,000 on ₹50,000 (fuel and cash withdrawals excluded) — up to roughly ₹1,000 a year in points if you spend consistently.
• A 1% fuel surcharge waiver on transactions between ₹400 and ₹5,000, capped ₹100 per cycle.

The base earn is modest — 0.5% is starter-card territory, and the utility/insurance rate is lower still — so don't buy this expecting a rewards engine. The points are a pleasant extra on top of the card's real job: building your credit file.

The 0.99% forex standout

Here's where the NOMO earns its keep. Most cards charge a 3.5% foreign-currency markup; a good travel card gets that down to about 2%; the NOMO charges just 0.99%. On a ₹1,00,000 overseas spend that's the difference between roughly ₹3,500 and under ₹1,000 in markup — real money, and a rate rare on any card, let alone a secured one.

The network helps here. AU launched the NOMO on Visa — its own launch release says the card was developed in collaboration with Visa — so the 0.99% rate applies wherever Visa is accepted abroad, in shops and on international websites alike. The one thing the network rules out is at home: a Visa credit card cannot be linked to UPI, so the NOMO is not a scan-and-pay card.

The honest read

Be clear about the trade-off. This is a secured card: you must park a fixed deposit with AU as collateral, and your credit limit is tied to it. That's the price of approval without income proof or a credit history — reasonable for a credit-builder, but it means the card locks up capital that could sit elsewhere. It's also not lifetime-free: a one-time ₹199 + GST joining fee applies, with no recurring annual fee. And the everyday earn is thin — the value case leans on the forex rate and the milestone, not the base 0.5%. The finance charge is 3.75% a month (45% a year simple, or about 55% once it compounds), so as with any card, carrying a balance erases the rewards several times over.

Who should hold it

The NOMO fits two people well: the credit-builder or thin-file applicant — a student, a new-to-credit earner, someone rebuilding — who wants a card that reports to the bureaus while still earning something; and the occasional international traveller who'll actually use that 0.99% markup. For that second group especially, it's a quietly clever choice: few cards at any price give you sub-1% forex, and fewer still without demanding an income. If building your score is the priority, read up on how CIBIL and eligibility work before you apply.

It's the wrong card if you don't want to lock money in an FD, if you expect meaningful everyday rewards (the caps and 0.5% base keep those small), or if you never spend abroad — in which case a plain no-fee cashback starter may serve you better.

The bottom line

The AU NOMO is a surprisingly capable secured card. Where most FD-backed cards are bare credit-builders, this one earns 2 points per ₹100, opens with a welcome bonus, and — the headline — carries a 0.99% forex markup that shames many premium unsecured cards. It won't dazzle on everyday spend, and it asks you to tie up a deposit and pay a ₹199 fee, but for someone building credit who also travels, it punches well above its weight. Go in understanding that it's secured — the deposit is the price of approval. Issued on Visa, that excellent markup works wherever Visa is accepted abroad, so treat it as a credit-builder that is also cheap to spend overseas with, and let it quietly build your score.