- Student Deals
- Discount Vouchers
- Money Off Vouchers
| Who owns which card | |
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This is something I’ve asked myself a few times… who actually owns all the credit cards that there are out there on the market? Are the cards all competing with each other? This would suggest that there is some fierce competition out there, and each card is trying to outdo each other. My economics brain (admittedly this was pretty long again) reckons that if they’re all competing then the margins they make (profit) must be pretty small – and so we, the consumer, must be getting the best deals possible. But.. and this is a big but.. it seems that a lot of credit cards aren’t independent. A lot of them have the same parent company. For example, take MBNA. MBNA have their own credit cards – well, a range of credit cards in fact. If you see a Manchester United credit card, a Sony credit card, a National trust credit card or a WWF credit card – they will all have been issued and been backed by MBNA. This is not too surprising as many of those organisations are not expected to have their own credit cards. Alliance and Leicester and Virgin credit cards are also backed by MBNA though, which all of a sudden means a reasonable share of the market, and cards that seem different, are actually “owned” or “managed” by the same organisation. The same applies for other organisations though – MBNA is by no means the only credit card provider with more than one card, whilst not overtly displaying this fact. What it really comes down though is whether they are providing a decent product to the consumers, you and me. Any hint of collaboration, and not giving the best deals because they are owned by the same organisation would be pretty damaging to the main company. Countering this though is the argument that organisations that do have a reasonable market share have the ability and the financial clout to really work on providing the best deals, whilst knowing that the volume of business will minimise the effect of cutting margins. |
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