Bank of America to Consider Launching their Own Credit Card Brand

Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover may have a new competitor if Bank of America pursues a plan to set up its own credit card processing network and launch a card brand.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis revealed that the nation?s second largest bank was considering such a plan. Currently, Bank of America has some 41.9 million card accounts, issued primarily under the Visa brand. According to a story appearing in the Wall Street Journal today, Bank of America accounts for around 20% of Visa?s revenues.

Bank of America and Visa have a very long and intimately-linked history. After a Bank of America predecessor, BankAmerica, pioneered the concept of the bank credit card, the platform evolved into the Visa network. Now the bank wants to build their own brand rather than helping another one remain the industry leader.

“I’m not real happy at this point that we built that brand when we could have been spending money on the Bank of America brand,” Lewis told the Journal. “Why not become the old BankAmericard again?”

Lewis also mentioned that any move in this regard would be more that a year away.