(27 February 2008 – Australia) Woolworths (WOW) has signed up for an exclusive agreement with a global bank, HSBC, for a general purpose Australian credit card.A formal alliance agreement will be signed in the first quarter of 2008 with a view to having the card in the market by later in the year.
Michael Luscombe, chief executive officer, Woolworths, emphasised the global leadership of HSBC in credit cards with world class technology and expertise.
He also said that the experience of HSBC was an important part of the decision and would help Woolworths to leverage their distribution reach and customer base in Australia.
HSBC already has long-term partnerships with other large retailer cards programs including Marks & Spencer’s and John Lewis in UK and Best Buys and Saks in the USA.
Each year, Woolworths processes 114 million credit card transactions through its checkouts which equates to 11 percent of all credit card transactions in the country.
Mr Luscombe added that the implementation of Woolworths’ own payments processing platform last year will provide a payments and cards infrastructure from which to launch a credit card program for customers.