Friday, September 13, 2013

Citigroup Betting Mail Charge Card Offers Pay Off Large

By Cornelius Nunev


Not to be out-done by the opposition, Citigroup is blasting out credit card offers by mail in the 3rd quarter, according to the Wall Street Journal. Research firm Synovate esti-mates over 346 million charge card offers will be distribut-ed in Q3 2011. That comes down to over one per individual in the United States, at the cost of $240 million.

Massive leap from someplace on top

Already among the most active mailers in the charge card industry, Citigroup is expected to officially take the crown from Chase once third quarter figures are tabulated. Considering that the company has re-portedly lost hundreds of millions of dollars on charge cards during the financial cri-sis, executives believe the mass mailing will be money well spent.

Citigroup has a lot of ground to make up since the Nilson Report said that Citigroup currently is behind American Express, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America in dollars spent on charge cards by United States customers, making it fourth.

Worse is gone

Citigroup is certain that the worst has already hit due to the reduction in non-collectable charge card debt in the U.S. In the second quar-ter of 2011, Citigroup made $584, showing this must be true. This is because a year before, $154 million was reported by the company as earnings.

Citigroup executive Jud Linville sees ample opportunity, as mailings from American Express, Bank of America and Discover all went down significantly last quar-ter.

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

Dodd-Frank Act takes away cash

Merchants will be stopped from charging too much cash for debit card interchange fees in Oct. This is due to the Dodd-Frank Act's Durbin Amendment. This makes debit cards substantially less profitable for issuing banks, which in turn has brought on several issuers to drop costly rewards programs.

Citigroup plans to get customers into its charge card programs by bridging this gap. Citi has decided to help even more by offering many deals to customers. Cards can have zero percent balance transfers, no late charges, no annual fees, or even simplified fee structures. The business is going to make money off of any custom-ers that take advantage of the promotions.




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