MBNA to divest UK card business

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011 ... uk-ireland

Saw this posted on another forum. Hope it doesn't have a negative effect on the VS cards!

Interesting.

Depends on who buys it as to what happens I suppose and what they want to do with the difefrent brands of cards.

I can see the purchaser reviewing who has the cards and then reducing credit limts and increasing fees

[Nottingham Nick]

Interesting article. Comes a day after I got a letter saying that Marriott is ending its UK credit card affinity with Halifax.

No news there on a replacement, so I think it is fair to say that whole sector is in a state of flux. 8D

Nick

[honey lamb]

This has been news in Ireland for the past couple of weeks and I suppose I'd be more conscious of it because of a) the VS link and b) because I know someone who works in their operation in Carrick-on-Shannon. I've been waiting for someone to raise this as I wasn't quite sure how much it would affect the UK but the silence has been deafening!

I should imagine the list of interested parties would be quite low? Barclaycard and Santander would top my list. Virgin Money Bank might be an outsider if they wanted to kick start a credit card offering by acquiring a large number of customers easily (at a cost)?

Not sure the competition authorities would allow Barclaycard or Santander to buy MBNA given the need to have a range of card suppliers and to spread financial risk.

The very word Santander makes me shudder. That'd be the end of it for me....

Would AMEX pick up direct, similar to the current BA card?

Interesting article. I've only had my VS Amex Card for a few months, primarily got it for the benefit of VS Miles when shopping. If it goes, would be a shame to lose the benefit of gaining additional miles, but hey ho, not the end of the world if they decide to no longer offer the card.

I had understood that balance transfer offers and credit limit reviews were on hold while this process was being carried out, but just taken a phone call this evening from an outbound team at MBNA offering 0% BT for 12 months...

I had understood that balance transfer offers and credit limit reviews were on hold while this process was being carried out, but just taken a phone call this evening from an outbound team at MBNA offering 0% BT for 12 months...

and I had a letter to the same tune yesterday.

& apparantly now the sale is off!

http://www.chesterchronicle.co.uk/chest ... -30293805/

Strange that Barclaycard's website doesn't seem to be allowing me to do a balance transfer from an MBNA card though, very odd...

Strange that Barclaycard's website doesn't seem to be allowing me to do a balance transfer from an MBNA card though, very odd...

I had that problem a couple of weeks ago but it transferred fine when I phoned Barclaycard to do it.

Think I might have to put a call in

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/aug/16/mbna-jobs-risk-uk-ireland

Saw this posted on another forum. Hope it doesn't have a negative effect on the VS cards!

That is important compared to 5000 people losing their jobs? Seriously, I think we need reality check here!