What are the major credit cards in Germany? 
Where can I find a list with names of German issuers/banks, and the
number of customers or cards issued?

(If possible, one should separate out all corporate cards (issued to
companies) from those issued to actual private consumers/persons if
corporate cards make a high number of cards from a specific issuer).



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Clarification on what I already know/have:

With credit cards I mean VISA, MasterCard, or store cards like
Red-Zac-Card with a credit line (as opposed to a payment card which
has no credit, and which is actually only a debit card). Most
Kreditkarte in Germany are not credit cards.

I'm thinking of cards where less than 10% of the balance has to be
paid in full. Thus, not charge cards or debit cards like Karstadt
MasterCard or DiBa VISA, but cards like Barclaycard VISA.

Barclaycard probably has more than 500,000 VISA Classic cards. 
So-called private-label "Store (Shop) cards" like Red-Zac-Card are OK
as long as they offer credit, i.e. the possibility of repaying your
card balance over several months, with interest."

If some of the cards offer no grace period, keine Zinsfreies
Zahlungsziel, please let us know.

According to industry sources, there were approximately 110 million
payment cards in Germany at year end 2002
This included approx. 5% which had a revolving credit line (i.e. which
did NOT have to be paid off 100% at the end of the month)

There were approx. 90 million Maestro cards (debit cards mostly) and
11 million MasterCard and 10 million VISA

In addition comes American Express and Diners of course. Together,
they had almost 2 million cards  - but most of these cards are
probably not real credit cards- the balance typically has to be paid
off at month-end.

All the above numbers include both corporate cards and private consumer cards. 

THE BELOW ARE NUMBERS FROM 1997 

Führende Anbieter von Visa-Karten in Deutschland (Ende '97) 

Bankgesellschaft Berlin 953.000 #
Citibank 848.000* 
Santander Direktbank 423.000 
Barclaycard 330.000 
Norisbank 302.000 
Volkswagen Bank direct 144.350 
Lufthansa Air Plus 125.000 
Postbank 108.000 
LG Stuttgart 97.000 
Quelle Bank 84.050 
*einschließlich 400.000 Bahn Cards 
#einschliesslich ADAC Mitglieder

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 15 Mar 2004 12:17 PST

Hello oaga-ga,

I have not found anything beyond the 1997 data that you already have
that is specific to individual cards and companies.  In general, this
type of information tends to only be available in high-priced
marketing studies...I'd be glad to locate such studies for you, but be
warned, they cost far more than the amount you have already offered
for this question.

I HAVE found statistics for 2002 that detail the numbers and types of
cards in use in Germany as a whole.  That is, the data cover the total
number of credit cards vs debit cards vs cash cards (and provides some
break-out of retailer-issued cards).

The data also cover the total number of transactions in each category
(cash, credit, debit) as well as the total value of these transaction;
the number of ATM's in the country, and so on.

Is this sort of information of interest to you?  If so, I could post
additional details and a link to the statistics as an answer to your
question.

Of course, you are welcome to re-price your question if you feel that
is appropriate, in order to better reflect the value to you of the
type of information I have described.

Thanks.

pafalafa-ga

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Clarification of Question by oaga-ga on 16 Mar 2004 05:27 PST

Thanks for following up. I already have the high level figures, i.e.
number of debit, credit, cash cards, transactions, ATM coverage etc.
Thus, the kind of information I am looking for is specific data for
individual cards and issuers.