We’d like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum.
This is to keep it a safe and useful space for MoneySaving discussions. Threads that are – or become – political in nature may be removed in line with the Forum’s rules. Thank you for your understanding.
📨 Have you signed up to the Forum's new Email Digest yet? Get a selection of trending threads sent straight to your inbox daily, weekly or monthly!
Credit Market Consolidation

th081
Posts: 179 Forumite


in Credit cards
Is there less competition in the credit card market with Virgin, Tesco, Sainsbury being taken over. I must admit with charging 25% rates I thought these companies were making a killing but obviously not. What is the long term prognosis of this consolidation will we see less 0% deals etc
0
Comments
-
th081 said:Is there less competition in the credit card market with Virgin, Tesco, Sainsbury being taken over. I must admit with charging 25% rates I thought these companies were making a killing but obviously not. What is the long term prognosis of this consolidation will we see less 0% deals etc
There's a vibrant competitive banking / credit market, with newcomers such as Chase offering a bit of innovation and challenge to the established players. Looking at a comparison website I'm seeing a lot of offers, though some of them will be different cards from the same providers.
Coming out of the crash offers were very thin on the ground, and dried up quite a bit for me around 2009/2010.
I'm not seeing anything similar at this point.
There are some grey clouds around. I'm not getting the limits I used to, although my status has changed and that could be part of it. More importantly there are very few deals without fees. I recently got a deal from Tesco with a fee of 0.99% for 16 months, but most of them seem to have fees of over 3%.0 -
Nebulous2 said:th081 said:Is there less competition in the credit card market with Virgin, Tesco, Sainsbury being taken over. I must admit with charging 25% rates I thought these companies were making a killing but obviously not. What is the long term prognosis of this consolidation will we see less 0% deals etc
There's a vibrant competitive banking / credit market, with newcomers such as Chase offering a bit of innovation and challenge to the established players. Looking at a comparison website I'm seeing a lot of offers, though some of them will be different cards from the same providers.
Coming out of the crash offers were very thin on the ground, and dried up quite a bit for me around 2009/2010.
I'm not seeing anything similar at this point.
There are some grey clouds around. I'm not getting the limits I used to, although my status has changed and that could be part of it. More importantly there are very few deals without fees. I recently got a deal from Tesco with a fee of 0.99% for 16 months, but most of them seem to have fees of over 3%.
Chase has yet to fully launch - I've had their banking app for years, had frequent offers for savings/Nutmeg and not a peep about the credit card.0 -
[Deleted User] said:Nebulous2 said:th081 said:Is there less competition in the credit card market with Virgin, Tesco, Sainsbury being taken over. I must admit with charging 25% rates I thought these companies were making a killing but obviously not. What is the long term prognosis of this consolidation will we see less 0% deals etc
There's a vibrant competitive banking / credit market, with newcomers such as Chase offering a bit of innovation and challenge to the established players. Looking at a comparison website I'm seeing a lot of offers, though some of them will be different cards from the same providers.
Coming out of the crash offers were very thin on the ground, and dried up quite a bit for me around 2009/2010.
I'm not seeing anything similar at this point.
There are some grey clouds around. I'm not getting the limits I used to, although my status has changed and that could be part of it. More importantly there are very few deals without fees. I recently got a deal from Tesco with a fee of 0.99% for 16 months, but most of them seem to have fees of over 3%.
Chase has yet to fully launch - I've had their banking app for years, had frequent offers for savings/Nutmeg and not a peep about the credit card.
Jaja isn't much older either.
1 -
[Deleted User] said:Nebulous2 said:th081 said:Is there less competition in the credit card market with Virgin, Tesco, Sainsbury being taken over. I must admit with charging 25% rates I thought these companies were making a killing but obviously not. What is the long term prognosis of this consolidation will we see less 0% deals etc
There's a vibrant competitive banking / credit market, with newcomers such as Chase offering a bit of innovation and challenge to the established players. Looking at a comparison website I'm seeing a lot of offers, though some of them will be different cards from the same providers.
Coming out of the crash offers were very thin on the ground, and dried up quite a bit for me around 2009/2010.
I'm not seeing anything similar at this point.
There are some grey clouds around. I'm not getting the limits I used to, although my status has changed and that could be part of it. More importantly there are very few deals without fees. I recently got a deal from Tesco with a fee of 0.99% for 16 months, but most of them seem to have fees of over 3%.
Chase has yet to fully launch - I've had their banking app for years, had frequent offers for savings/Nutmeg and not a peep about the credit card.
Chase has launched it's credit card, but invitation only so far, I haven't been offered it either.
I haven't been very active in recent times, and decided I needed to pick that up. In the past week I've got a money transfer, a long-term 0% balance transfer card and a long-term 0% purchase card.
There doesn't appear to be a shortage of companies willing to throw offers at me to get my business.
1 -
Nebulous2 said:[Deleted User] said:Nebulous2 said:th081 said:Is there less competition in the credit card market with Virgin, Tesco, Sainsbury being taken over. I must admit with charging 25% rates I thought these companies were making a killing but obviously not. What is the long term prognosis of this consolidation will we see less 0% deals etc
There's a vibrant competitive banking / credit market, with newcomers such as Chase offering a bit of innovation and challenge to the established players. Looking at a comparison website I'm seeing a lot of offers, though some of them will be different cards from the same providers.
Coming out of the crash offers were very thin on the ground, and dried up quite a bit for me around 2009/2010.
I'm not seeing anything similar at this point.
There are some grey clouds around. I'm not getting the limits I used to, although my status has changed and that could be part of it. More importantly there are very few deals without fees. I recently got a deal from Tesco with a fee of 0.99% for 16 months, but most of them seem to have fees of over 3%.
Chase has yet to fully launch - I've had their banking app for years, had frequent offers for savings/Nutmeg and not a peep about the credit card.
Chase has launched it's credit card, but invitation only so far, I haven't been offered it either.
I haven't been very active in recent times, and decided I needed to pick that up. In the past week I've got a money transfer, a long-term 0% balance transfer card and a long-term 0% purchase card.
There doesn't appear to be a shortage of companies willing to throw offers at me to get my business.
You clearly don't understand what an oligopolistic market is - like most Brits.
Just looking at the top five balance transfer options in MSE - four are Barclaycard/Tesco Bank and one is HSBC with the next best four; two are MBNA/Lloyds and two are Santander.
0 -
Santander have a fee free BT albeit only for 12M, as do Natwest.There will be others probably but I’ve used these two before for fee free.For purchases, the M&S card is good for 24M 0% and £35 TopCashback.Still plenty of good deals out there1
-
[Deleted User] said:Nebulous2 said:[Deleted User] said:Nebulous2 said:th081 said:Is there less competition in the credit card market with Virgin, Tesco, Sainsbury being taken over. I must admit with charging 25% rates I thought these companies were making a killing but obviously not. What is the long term prognosis of this consolidation will we see less 0% deals etc
There's a vibrant competitive banking / credit market, with newcomers such as Chase offering a bit of innovation and challenge to the established players. Looking at a comparison website I'm seeing a lot of offers, though some of them will be different cards from the same providers.
Coming out of the crash offers were very thin on the ground, and dried up quite a bit for me around 2009/2010.
I'm not seeing anything similar at this point.
There are some grey clouds around. I'm not getting the limits I used to, although my status has changed and that could be part of it. More importantly there are very few deals without fees. I recently got a deal from Tesco with a fee of 0.99% for 16 months, but most of them seem to have fees of over 3%.
Chase has yet to fully launch - I've had their banking app for years, had frequent offers for savings/Nutmeg and not a peep about the credit card.
Chase has launched it's credit card, but invitation only so far, I haven't been offered it either.
I haven't been very active in recent times, and decided I needed to pick that up. In the past week I've got a money transfer, a long-term 0% balance transfer card and a long-term 0% purchase card.
There doesn't appear to be a shortage of companies willing to throw offers at me to get my business.
You clearly don't understand what an oligopolistic market is - like most Brits.
Just looking at the top five balance transfer options in MSE - four are Barclaycard/Tesco Bank and one is HSBC with the next best four; two are MBNA/Lloyds and two are Santander.
Barclays & Tesco will be the same group sure but you have HSBC, Santander, Lloyds/MNBA, Capital One, Co-Op, TSB, NatWest, Virgin, Nationwide, Post Office all offering themSam Vimes' Boots Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness:
People are rich because they spend less money. A poor man buys $10 boots that last a season or two before he's walking in wet shoes and has to buy another pair. A rich man buys $50 boots that are made better and give him 10 years of dry feet. The poor man has spent $100 over those 10 years and still has wet feet.
0 -
Nasqueron said:[Deleted User] said:Nebulous2 said:[Deleted User] said:Nebulous2 said:th081 said:Is there less competition in the credit card market with Virgin, Tesco, Sainsbury being taken over. I must admit with charging 25% rates I thought these companies were making a killing but obviously not. What is the long term prognosis of this consolidation will we see less 0% deals etc
There's a vibrant competitive banking / credit market, with newcomers such as Chase offering a bit of innovation and challenge to the established players. Looking at a comparison website I'm seeing a lot of offers, though some of them will be different cards from the same providers.
Coming out of the crash offers were very thin on the ground, and dried up quite a bit for me around 2009/2010.
I'm not seeing anything similar at this point.
There are some grey clouds around. I'm not getting the limits I used to, although my status has changed and that could be part of it. More importantly there are very few deals without fees. I recently got a deal from Tesco with a fee of 0.99% for 16 months, but most of them seem to have fees of over 3%.
Chase has yet to fully launch - I've had their banking app for years, had frequent offers for savings/Nutmeg and not a peep about the credit card.
Chase has launched it's credit card, but invitation only so far, I haven't been offered it either.
I haven't been very active in recent times, and decided I needed to pick that up. In the past week I've got a money transfer, a long-term 0% balance transfer card and a long-term 0% purchase card.
There doesn't appear to be a shortage of companies willing to throw offers at me to get my business.
You clearly don't understand what an oligopolistic market is - like most Brits.
Just looking at the top five balance transfer options in MSE - four are Barclaycard/Tesco Bank and one is HSBC with the next best four; two are MBNA/Lloyds and two are Santander.
Barclays & Tesco will be the same group sure but you have HSBC, Santander, Lloyds/MNBA, Capital One, Co-Op, TSB, NatWest, Virgin, Nationwide, Post Office all offering them
The UK financial system is an oligopolistic market and this has got worse since 2020 as non-UK firms can no longer 'dip their toe in' with EEA passporting.0 -
[Deleted User] said:Virgin / Nationwide are the same provider
This is clearly not true. One is a building society, the other is a bank.0 -
WillPS said:[Deleted User] said:Virgin / Nationwide are the same provider
This is clearly not true. One is a building society, the other is a bank.
On 1 October 2024, Nationwide completed its acquisition of Virgin MoneyLife in the slow lane0
Confirm your email address to Create Threads and Reply

Categories
- All Categories
- 352K Banking & Borrowing
- 253.5K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
- 454.1K Spending & Discounts
- 245K Work, Benefits & Business
- 600.5K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
- 177.4K Life & Family
- 258.7K Travel & Transport
- 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
- 16.2K Discuss & Feedback
- 37.6K Read-Only Boards