Bank of America Readying for Global Credit Card Expansion

by Mike Bevel, CollectionIndustry.com

First Wal-Mart, now Bank of America: everybody wants a piece of China.

Bank of America plans to issue a joint Chinese credit card with partner China Construction Bank next year, part of an Asian expansion plan that will increase its regional staff by up to 20 percent in the next two years.

In recent months, China has made baby steps towards consumer credit ? which has tickled pink most American credit card issuers. There?s not much creepier than the giddy giggling of a credit card provider. Banks are pinning their hopes on credit cards and wealth management in China, which has nearly $2 trillion in personal savings, an economy growing at faster than 9 percent and a bank sector opening fully to foreign competition in December.

“I’d be disappointed if we didn’t have something up and running sometime next year,” Chief Executive Ken Lewis told Reuters on Sunday in an interview at its regional headquarters in Singapore.

It?s not just China that might get the Bank of America treatment. According to a Charlotte Observer story, Bank of America Corp. could open credit-card businesses in Portugal and Italy next year, expanding its European credit-card division from the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain.

The European credit-card operations follow the traditional model of the former MBNA. Cards are marketed directly to customers, and the company focuses on affinity brands that celebrate relationships with teams or schools or causes.

The expansion of the credit card business is a big piece of the bank’s strategy for overseas growth. In interviews last week at the meeting of the International Monetary Fund in Singapore, CEO Ken Lewis said the bank would focus on credit cards and investment banking in Europe and Asia.