Posted on 31 March 2011
Tags: accommodation, account, accounts, addition, airport lounge access, Amazing, America, AmericanExpress, AMEX, amex centurion card, amount, annual fee, Barclay, Barclays, benefit, benefits, black credit cards, Brazil, Broadway, carat diamond, card visa, cardholder, cardholders, Centurion Card, Chairman, Chase Sapphire Card, Citi, Citi Bank, Citigroup, credit, credit card, credit card debt, Credit Cards, Credit Report, customers, Diamond, diamond card, discount, flight hours, free flight, gifts, golden heart, heart shape, hotels, identity, important, insurance, ISA, Kazakhstan, Latin America, Luck, luxury, marquis jets, MasterCard, Merrill, merrill lynch, National Westminster Bank, percentage, priority, private bank, private jet, rewards, santander group, signature card, Smith Barney, spending limit, sporting, The bank, travel, U.S, US, VIP, VISA, Visa Black Card, visa signature, wealth, wealthy
Here is the list of eight exclusively rare credit cards other than the Amex Centurion Card and the Visa Black Card, which are popular because of their special benefits. All these credit cards have one common specialty that, they can only belong with some of the wealthiest citizens around the globe.
1. Eurasian Bank Diamond Card
This card is purely a sign of elegance and wealth. Its design has a 0.02-carat diamond which is surrounded by a golden heart shape. It is the property of the bank of Kazakhstan and only belongs with those customers of the bank who have an account of $300,000 or more.
2. The Visa Signature Card
Visa Black Card is the property of Barclay’s Bank. Its top ranked card is Visa Signature Card, which provides several amazing facilities to the customers. Its most important feature is that, it has no spending limit. Other includes; A VIP access to Broadway shows and musicals; Special accesses to different sporting events and concerts; travel facilities at many hotels and airlines and better dining facilities.
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Posted on 28 October 2008
Tags: American Express, American Express Company, AMEX, anti-trust, anti-trust law suit, Bloomberg, credit card, Discover, lawsuit, MasterCard, settlement, united states, VISA
This Monday, credit card issuing companies VISA and MASTERCARD announced that they have settled the anti-trust law suit filed by Discover Financial Services. Discover accused both of the companies of entering in to exclusivity contracts with banks. Such contracts prohibited banks and other financial institutions to issue competing cards. Discover filed for $6 billion as compensation but settled for less than half that amount.
Visa has a larger credit card holder base and paid the major chunk of settlement amount. Visa Paid $1.8 Billion. While MasterCard with second largest penetration paid only $862.5 Million.
This amount looks big but it is peanuts when it is viewed in context of Total US Credit Card Market Size. According to Bloomberg
The value of U.S. credit card purchases was $2.17 trillion in 2007, up from $426 billion in 1993.
Previously, AMEX (American Express Company) sued both of credit card Giants and managed to extract about $5 billion in settlement.
So It is obvious that VISA and MASTERCARD have struck a great deal. Paying under $10 billion for un-restricted access to a multi-trillion dollar market is good business in every sense of word.
How these two play with each other is yet to be seen…
More on this story can be read here
