NewDay: the company behind Aqua, Marbles and Opus credit cards

NewDay is a UK credit card issuer that lends under names you may already recognise from the high street and from comparison tables. Its own brands include Aqua, Marbles and Opus, and it also runs cards for retail partners, including Argos Pay and AO Finance. If you hold one of those cards, NewDay is the firm that sets your credit limit, sends your statement and handles your complaint.

NewDay is the firm behind the Aqua, Marbles and Opus credit cards, and it says it welcomed over one million new customers last year¹. Its Financial Services Register entry lists its trading names, including Aqua Classic, Aqua Advance, Aqua, AO Finance, Aquacard, Aqua Start, Aqua Reward, aqua loans, Aqua Gold, Argos Pay, Argos Credit and Argos Classic Credit Card, and gives its website as www.newday.co.uk².

NewDay has been in the redress headlines before. In March 2016 it announced it would refund over £4 million to over 180,000 customers, and the Financial Conduct Authority recorded that NewDay determined approximately 3% of its customers would be due redress under its scheme³. That scheme is closed to new claims, but it explains why the name comes up in searches about refunds.

The Aqua, Marbles and Opus credit cards

Aqua, Marbles and Opus are NewDay's own credit card brands. They sit in the part of the market aimed at people who may not qualify for a card from a high street bank, or who want a card that reports to credit reference agencies while they rebuild a credit history. NewDay's register entry lists the Aqua variants by name, including Aqua Classic, Aqua Advance, Aqua Start, Aqua Reward and Aqua Gold, which tells you the brand is run as a family of products rather than a single card².

What each card offers, what it costs and who it accepts are set by NewDay and change over time, so the current terms are on NewDay's own site rather than fixed here. What matters for a reader is the shape of the thing: a credit card, with a credit limit, a monthly statement, a minimum repayment and interest charged on balances carried past the due date. Credit cards in the UK come from banks, finance companies and larger supermarket and store chains, and some charge an annual fee⁶.

If you are weighing up a card like this against others, the credit cards guide sets out how interest, minimum repayments and Section 75 cover work across the market, and the lenders and card issuers directory lists who else issues cards in the UK.

Store and retail partner cards issued by NewDay

A large part of NewDay's business is issuing cards on behalf of retailers rather than under its own name. These are store cards and retail partner credit cards: cards you can use to pay for goods over a period of time, working in the same way as credit cards but often charging higher rates of interest and usable only in that chain of shops⁸. Some retail cards are open to wider use through a card scheme, and issuers are members of a scheme such as Mastercard or Visa to which the card they have issued is tied⁹.

The practical difference for a customer is where the card works and who you deal with. A store card tied to one retailer can only be spent there, so a balance on it is a balance with that shop's card, serviced by NewDay. A retail partner card badged with a scheme logo can be spent more widely. Either way, the credit agreement is with NewDay, and the retailer is not the lender.

If you are comparing a store card with a general credit card, the credit cards guide covers how the two differ on interest, protection and where they can be used.

Argos Pay, AO Finance and other NewDay trading names

NewDay trades under a long list of names, and the Financial Services Register is the place to check which ones belong to it. The register entry for NewDay lists Aqua Classic, Aqua Advance, Aqua, AO Finance, Aquacard, Aqua Start, Aqua Reward, aqua loans, Aqua Gold, Argos Pay, Argos Credit and Argos Classic Credit Card among its current trading names². It also lists a run of previous names, including Amazon Classic MasterCard, Amazon Classic Credit Card, Amazon Classic Card, Amazon Classic, Amazon Card, Amazon Platinum Card, Amazon Platinum, Amazon MasterCard, Amazon Credit Card and Amazon Credit².

That list matters because a card can change name without changing hands. If your card was issued under one of the Amazon names and now appears under a different brand, the account itself has not necessarily moved. Amazon currently offers two credit cards issued by NewDay¹⁰.

Trading names are not separate companies. They are labels NewDay uses, and the firm behind them is the same entity for complaints, credit decisions and data. If you are unsure which firm is on your agreement, the regulation and policy guide explains how to read a firm's register entry.

How the charges on NewDay cards work

NewDay does not publish a single price list across its brands, and the figures differ by card, so the rates and fees that apply to you are the ones in your own agreement. What can be said generally is how credit card charges are built. Fees on UK credit cards can include annual fees, balance transfer fees, default fees, fees for cash withdrawals and foreign transaction fees⁹. Some providers charge an annual fee, and where they do, the fee is added to the amount due and you have to pay it as part of your balance⁷.

Interest is the bigger cost for most people. It is charged on balances you carry past the payment date, and the rate depends on the card and on your circumstances at application. Minimum repayments are set by rules rather than by the firm's whim: for credit cards entered into since 1 April 2011, firms must set minimum repayments at an amount that covers at least the interest, fees and charges applied to the account plus one percentage of the amount outstanding¹¹. That rule exists because paying only the interest keeps a balance alive for years.

Two other rules shape what you pay. Since 1 January 2011, repayments must be used to pay off the most expensive debt first, so a balance transfer or cash advance sitting at a higher rate is cleared before cheaper spending¹². And if you use a card for a recurring payment, such as a subscription, that is a recurring card payment, also called a continuous payment authority, set up with your card details rather than your current account details¹³.

Managing a NewDay card online and in the app

NewDay cards are run as online accounts. Applications, statements, credit limit changes and most day to day servicing happen through the NewDay website or app rather than in branches, because NewDay has no branch network. That is normal for a card issuer of this kind, and it means the account is managed by you: checking your balance, setting up or changing a Direct Debit, downloading statements and reporting a lost or stolen card.

If a card is lost, stolen or stopped, the rules require firms to give customers information about how long a replacement takes, under a rule that applies specifically to that information¹⁴. In practice, the app or the website is where you report the card and where the replacement is ordered.

One thing worth knowing if you replace a card: some card providers run updater services, which automatically send your replacement card details to retailers you previously saved your card details with, and both banks and merchants can choose whether to opt into these services¹⁵. That is convenient when a subscription would otherwise fail, and it also means a cancelled card does not always stop a recurring payment.

NewDay's redress scheme: which customers are affected

NewDay's redress scheme is the reason many people search for the firm. In March 2016, NewDay announced that it would refund over £4 million to over 180,000 customers following a review, and the Financial Conduct Authority recorded that NewDay determined approximately 3% of its customers would be due redress under its scheme³. The scheme related to the way the firm had handled certain accounts, and the customers affected were contacted directly.

The wider context is that credit card firms have paid significant redress. Across banking and credit card products, £145m of redress was paid between July and December 2014, a 64% increase on the previous period¹⁷. Where redress is paid for mis-sold payment protection insurance alongside a credit card, most businesses pay it directly to the consumer, which the Financial Ombudsman Service considers fair¹⁸.

If you believe you were affected by a NewDay scheme and were not contacted, the route is to ask NewDay first. If you are unhappy with the answer, the complaint can go to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which can order a firm to pay compensation¹². The debt guide covers what to do if a balance or a disputed charge is causing difficulty in the meantime.

Card accounts NewDay has taken over from other issuers

NewDay has grown partly by buying card portfolios from other issuers. The Financial Conduct Authority has noted that over the ten years to 2015, NewDay had acquired portfolios from three different issuers¹⁹. Buying a portfolio means the accounts move to the new issuer, and customers are told what changes and what does not.

This is a common pattern in UK credit cards. When Bank of Ireland sold its UK credit card accounts, they were passed to Jaja, a digital finance company, and customers were written to about the change²⁰. The lesson for a cardholder is that the brand on the card can change while the debt, the credit agreement terms and your rights stay with you. A new issuer cannot simply rewrite the protections you already have.

If your account has moved to NewDay from another issuer, the practical questions are who to pay, where to log in, and whether your Direct Debit details have changed. Those are answered in the letter you receive about the transfer. If you are unsure whether a letter about your card is genuine, the scams and fraud guide explains how to check.

How your borrowing is protected and where to complain

Credit cards carry a set of protections that apply whoever issues them. Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act makes your credit card company jointly liable if something goes wrong with a purchase, where the cost was more than £100 and less than £30,000²¹. Chargeback is a separate, voluntary scheme run by Amex, Mastercard and Visa that applies to both credit and debit card purchases of any value²³. The consumer protection guide sets out how these work in detail.

On the rules side, the Financial Conduct Authority has authorised consumer credit firms since 1 April 2014, when it took over that role from the Office of Fair Trading, covering around 50,000 firms at the time⁵. Since 2014 the FCA has considered applications from around 40,000 consumer credit firms²⁵. NewDay sits within that regime, and its register entry is the record of its permissions and trading names².

If something goes wrong, complain to NewDay first. If you are unhappy with its response, you can take the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which covers complaints about credit cards, including the affordability of lending²⁶. The ombudsman is free, and it can force a firm to pay compensation¹². Complaints about credit cards are among the most common it receives: it opened 5,783 new credit card complaints in the first quarter of 2026/27, and 49,400 new credit card complaints about irresponsible or unaffordable lending in 2024/25²⁷. NewDay itself had 5,717 new cases opened with the ombudsman in the first half of 2024²⁹.