In an effort to reduce their debts, many customers in the United States are closing their cards and transferring their debts on to other balance transfer cards available in the market today. However, this does not seem to be the wisest thing to do. Closure of the cards that you are holding on to for the longest time will have a negative implication on your FICO scores. This is because it will reduce your borrowing history drastically and portray you as a person without enough experience in handling credit cards. This can, in turn, have an adverse impact on almost every aspect of your financial life.

The current model for calculating the FICO scores favors customers who have a long history of holding credit cards and using them wisely. If you have been a customer of a particular bank for long and the bank now wants to increase your interest rates, the option is not to just close your account and move on. In fact, the interest rate hikes on these cards may be nominal as compared to applying for a new card after closing this one. In fact, closing the oldest card just because of an increase in interest rate or addition of annual fees may have a negative impact on your application form for the new card with the chances of rejection being higher. This implies that there are chances that you may be left without a credit card in your wallet even during emergencies.