HBoS in cahoots with MBNA??

peterbaker

I just received a letter advising me that my very long term affinity card (a Chartered Insurance Institute Gold Mastercard dating back donkey's years) is now being run by Bank of Scotland on behalf of MBNA and eventually will be completely transferred to MBNA.

What on earth is going on in this crazy marketplace?

MarkyMarkD

I had a similar letter re another affinity BOS card.

It would appear that HBOS are flogging off their affinity cards to MBNA, but I've not heard anything re my Halifax card so presumably they are keeping the main company branded ones.

peterbaker

Interesting, but why on earth would they be throwing babies out with the bath water??

I havent been a member of the CII for some years now and even when I was, I had no communication with them about the card since the day in the late 80s I think that they mailed a BoS Mastercard application flyer with my CII membership subscription renewal.

I don't personally claim to be more than bath water now, but I would have thought that members of the Chartered Insurance Institute would be a good solid market for HBoS compared, say, to members of their "007 James Bond card" affinity group! (yep I was one of those too once!)

Or is this more sinister? Is this evidence of cartel type activity exposed by the wind under the front stalls in the marketplace? I have long thought that, as a result of unregulated expansion of credit reference agency databases coupled with uncontrolled takeover activity in the banking and credit card industry, there is far too much data and power in the hands of too few super-players now.

And digressing enormously now (sorry too lazy to start a new topic at this time of night!) what is this weird marketing of "Money Manager" type facilities where we are being tempted to store all our online banking passwords in one place with one bank or another (e.g. Egg or Citibank to name just two). Why do thos particular banks want us to trust them with that data?

I actually got revised T&Cs from one card the other day (Barclaycard I think) which said that I was protected for Internet fraud but not for anything to do with losses arising from using one of these "Money Manager" type username and password depositories.

Suffice to say I have not put all my passwords in one place because I have no idea what's in it for these strange banks who want me to trust them so much!

Fatboy_NSS

Whether or not holders of the card are a good market for HBOS, I'm sure their deal with the CII wouldn't allow them to market their products to CII cardholders. This is likely just economies of scale - MBNA have become the leading affinity card issuer in the UK and HBOS can't compete so they're leaving the market.

peterbaker

I don't understand you point about economy of scale - my card is a Bank Of Scotland card. It differs from a "straight" BoS card in very insignificant ways. The CII don't own the affinity group so what's occurring?

It seems to me that anything to do with financial services thesedays is built on shifting sands.