Three of the four financial institutions that began issuing credit card in affinity with a college or university in 2010 were credit unions, according to a new report from the Federal Reserve. This is the second year the Fed has published the report.
The Fed's most recent Report to Congress on College Credit Card Agreements revealed that the Pen Air Federal Credit Union launched an affinity card program with the University of West Florida Foundation; the University of Illinois Employees Credit Union launched an affinity card program with the University of Illinois Alumni Association and the USC Credit Union began issuing cards in affinity with the University of Southern California Alumni Association.
The report also revealed that Pen Air FCU and the University of Illinois FCU won those affinity card programs from FIA Card Services, the card issuing arm of Bank of America. FIA, the card issuer formerly known as MBNA, has long specialized in affinity card agreements and terminated 214 or almost 25% of its agreements in 2010, according to the report, most of which were programs with a few hundred or a few thousand open accounts, the Fed reported.
The Michigan State University Federal Credit Union also began an affinity program with Michigan State University that also had been served by FIA in 2011 which was not included in this report.
