SCRA-Friendly Banks: Who Actually Beats the 6% Cap

Every bank that holds a debt you took on before you served has to obey the same federal law: cap it at 6%. Some stop there. Others voluntarily go well below the line, waive fees the statute never mentions, or keep the benefit running past your separation. This is the directory of who does what, sorted so you can see at a glance which lenders go above and beyond, which meet the floor cleanly, and which have a wrinkle worth knowing before you file.

The floor every bank must meet, and what “above and beyond” means

Start with the part that is not optional. Under 50 U.S.C. § 3937, a lender must drop the interest on any pre-service debt to 6% once you send written notice with your orders. The cap is retroactive to your first day of active duty, and the interest above 6% is forgiven, not deferred, so it never comes back. That is federal law. It is identical at every bank on this page, it cannot be waived away in the fine print, and it is yours whether your bank is generous or not.

50 U.S.C. § 3937 · the SCRA interest rate cap. Send written notice plus a copy of your orders; the excess interest is forgiven, not deferred.

“Above and beyond” is everything a bank chooses to do on top of that floor. A rate below 6%. Fee waivers past what the Military Lending Act requires. Benefits on accounts you opened while serving, or a rate that runs a year past your separation. None of it is required, which is the catch: because it is voluntary, a bank can trim or end it at its own discretion, sometimes with little notice.

A correction, and why it matters to you

This directory used to credit Citi and Barclays with 0% and Chase with 4%. In July 2026 we went and read all three issuers’ own pages. None of those numbers is there.

Barclays publishes the opposite of what the internet says about it: “the SCRA benefits ensure your APR is capped at no more than 6%.” Citi’s page describes “reduced interest rates” and prints no figure. Chase’s page lists “Reduction of Interest Rate” as a benefit and prints no figure, which we confirmed twice, because a missing number looks like a broken page until you check.

Those three figures came to us the way they came to everyone: from other sites, which got them from other sites. That is worth saying plainly, because it is the exact failure this directory exists to prevent. A rate no issuer will print is a rate no issuer owes you.

The play, then, never changes. Send the statutory request, in writing, to every lender, because that is what makes retroactivity and forgiveness enforceable. Then make the issuer tell you, in writing, what rate it actually applied. Every row below links to the issuer’s own page and to the full guide behind it.

The directory: who goes beyond 6%

Institutions are grouped into three tiers, then ranked within each by the lowest rate they report. The rate hedge, the fee treatment, the short filing route, and the verification badge on each row all come straight from that institution’s full guide on this site. How the tiers are assigned, and exactly what “reported” means, is spelled out in the methodology below the table.

Your payoff order changes after the letters go out

Civilian debt advice says attack the highest APR first. After your SCRA notices land, the actual rates on your pre-service debts may look nothing like the contract rates, so your payoff order should follow the new reality:

1. A 4%-club balance (USAA, Navy Federal, Capital One and its Discover accounts) drops below most car loans and every card. It goes to the back of the list.
2. Anything at the statutory 6% sits in the middle.
3. Any during-service debt with no cap at all goes to the front of the line. That 24% card you opened at the mall outside the gate is not covered by anything, and it is the one actually costing you money.

And if you are deploying to a combat zone, the payoff order changes again, because the Savings Deposit Program pays a guaranteed 10%. Sending spare dollars at a 6%-capped loan while a 10% slot sits open is a losing trade for almost everyone.

Two corollaries fall out of the directory. First, never balance-transfer a capped balance while you are serving. The transfer is a new during-service debt, and the cap dies in transit. (Before your start date, that same transfer is one of the best moves available to you, which is the whole pre-service window.) Second, the post-service extensions matter: Capital One holds its 4% until a year after active duty ends and Sallie Mae does the same, while the statute itself extends only mortgages. That makes the separation year the time to finish off whichever balances are about to snap back to contract rates. The 180-day window for late invocation is still open then too.

How we sort these tiers

The three tiers are derived only from the verified data on this site. Each bank’s own guide cites the issuer’s SCRA page, or a government source where the issuer publishes none, and this directory renders straight from that data so the two can never drift.

• Above and beyond means a voluntary rate below 6% and/or fee waivers or benefits past what the law and the MLA require, documented on the issuer’s own SCRA page.
• Meets the statute cleanly means the statutory 6% applied properly, with a published SCRA process and the excess forgiven, but no sub-6% rate and no fee-waiver headline. This is the law done right, not a lesser bank.
• Know before you file means the lender is bound by the same 6% law but the record flags something to confirm first: the issuer publishes no SCRA rate at all (Citi, Chase, Synchrony), or its own guide documents a filing wrinkle (Synchrony has a post-service clawback history; Santander and Chrysler Capital carry DOJ settlement history). Friction is not lawbreaking, and a bank in this tier may quietly be generous. You just cannot verify it in advance.

What “reported” means, and what changed. It now means one thing only: the issuer publishes no SCRA rate, so the row falls back to the 6% statutory floor and says so. It does not mean “here is a number we heard.” That distinction is the whole correction. Citi, Chase, and Synchrony publish no rate. Their rows show 6%, because 6% is what the law guarantees you and what you should plan around, and the note tells you to get the real figure in writing.

Previously this column carried a bold 0% for Barclays in a row whose own cited source says 6%. If you are ever tempted to trust a rate here over the issuer’s page linked beside it, trust the issuer’s page.

When this was verified. Each row was checked against the issuer’s own SCRA page, where one exists, in July 2026. Voluntary lender policies are the most perishable facts on this site, so treat that date as a “check by,” not a guarantee. Confirm the current terms on the issuer’s page, linked in every row, before you rely on it.

Found something that has changed? If a bank’s current policy does not match what you see here, that is the most useful message we get. Send the row and your source through our contact page, and see the editorial policy for how corrections are handled.

Run the full sequence at every lender

Work the directory

1. Send the statutory SCRA notice with orders to every lender holding a pre-service debt, generous or not (letter generator). The letter is what makes retroactivity and forgiveness enforceable.
2. When each confirmation arrives, note the actual applied rate (statutory 6% or the issuer’s better number) and the end date they state.
3. Ask the sub-6% question where it could matter: “Does your military rate apply to accounts below 6% too?” Get it in writing.
4. Re-sort your payoff order by the new real rates: uncapped debt first, 0% balances last.
5. Calendar the snap-back dates (separation, or the issuer’s extension end) and clear what you can before rates revert.
6. Recheck the issuer’s terms when you apply. Programs moved before and will move again.

The law behind this: 50 U.S.C. § 3937

Maximum rate of interest on debts incurred before military service, the floor under every program above: read the statute.