Thursday, October 10, 2013

Citigroup Blasting Credit Card Offers By Mail

By Cornelius Nunev


With business sagging, Citigroup Inc. is making a major force for credit card customers, reports the Wall Street Jour-nal. Arriving at a North American home in your area in the third quarter will be an estimat-ed 346 million charge card deals, accord-ing to statistics compiled by analysis firm Synovate. That's greater than one for every man, female and kid in the United States, at a cost exceeding $240 million.

Enormous leap from somewhere on top

After the 3rd quarter figures are tabulated, Citigroup will probably take the lead from Chase as it is already one of probably the most active mailers for credit card promotions. Sending out postal mail is money well spent, ac-cording to experts. This is since the business lost millions during the financial crisis with changes in credit cards.

As the Nilson Report confirms that Citigroup currently ranks fourth in dollars spent on charge cards by U.S. consumers - behind American Express, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp. - the ground to make up is considera-ble.

Worse is gone

Citigroup is confident that the worst has already hit be-cause of the reduction in non-collectable credit card debt in the U.S. The numbers bear this out, as the business made $584 million in the second quarter of 2011, versus a $154 million loss a year before.

Last quarter, American Express, Bank of America and Discover all dropped the number of mailings they did, which is why Citigroup executive Jud Linville believes that there's a great opportunity.

"This is a business where you look for vacuums," Linville said. "Are there players moving out of certain categories?"

Cash lost due to law

In Oct, the fees banks charge for debit card swipes will be capped by merchants because of the Durbin Amendment of the Dodd-Frank Act. With all of the caps, the debit cards become less profitable. That means that lots of issuers have dropped all rewards programs associated with the cards.

Citigroup plans to get consumers into its charge card programs by bridging this gap. To grease the wheels, Citi has offered charge cards with simplified fee structures this summer, some with no annual fee or late charges, others with zero percent balance trans-fers. Consumers that take advantage of the promotions will end up making Citi some money. It will be worth it in the end.




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