Rich, listed online mail order company is looking for a bank in Germany. The shipping giant Amazon is currently looking for a partner for its popular credit card offer. The first talks should already be underway. But the end is also in the room.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has not yet come up with the idea of integrating a partner exchange on his platform. One is currently looking for a new partner at Amazon. The online mail order company needs a new bank in order to maintain its popular credit card offering in Germany.
The online retailer is currently speaking to several banks. Among them should also be the Deutsche Kreditbank (DKB) and Santander, reports the financial magazine “Finance Forward”. The names of the banking institutes Solaris, Hanseatic Bank and Barclays are also circulating in financial circles as possible new partners. If the coupling with a new bank does not work, there is even an end to the offer. Millions of users would be affected. A look at Great Britain shows that it is quite possible that Amazon will stop offering credit cards. The shipping giant had recently removed a similar offer from its portfolio there. Around 800,000 customer accounts will be closed in the coming months.
New negotiations with German banks became necessary because the previous cooperation partner, the savings bank’s own Landesbank Berlin, terminated the cooperation in autumn 2021. And the deal between the two was considered prestigious. Amazon is likely to have generated around one million credit card customers with the help of Berliner Bank over the years. At the end of 2022, this should now be over. For new customers, the credit card offer has been paused for months. “It is not possible to apply for the Amazon.de VISA card until further notice. […] Since we currently have no further information, we ask you to refrain from further inquiries by telephone or e-mail in the meantime,” says the company’s website.
The advantages of the Amazon credit card:
However, it should be clear who is in charge of the new negotiations. Amazon will use its market power and dictate the terms of a potential new deal. As early as 2019, Landesbank Berlin’s annual report at the time stated: “The decline is primarily due to new contractual agreements in co-branding with credit cards. The surplus has fallen as a result of the partial waiver of annual ticket fees and a higher sales bonus for certain customer groups as well as the simultaneous stronger growth of this portfolio.”
With the end of Amazon’s credit card offer, discounts may also be lost for customers. Until now, anyone who paid with the Amazon card could look forward to cashback of up to three percent of the purchase amount. This could then be redeemed for the next purchase. It is still unclear whether this bonus program will remain in place if Amazon finds a new partner bank.
The dissolution of the partnership between Amazon and Landesbank Berlin is also likely to have a financial background. The so-called co-branding business is no longer lucrative enough. Because: Banks are no longer allowed to withhold high fees when using the card. It is simply no longer worthwhile since the so-called interchange fee was capped by law in 2015.
As Finanz-Magazin further reports, the end of the cooperation between Amazon and Landesbank Berlin is not an isolated case. Berliner Bank has also ended the credit card program with the ADAC. 1.3 million customers were affected. The new one at the side of the ADAC: the Solarisbank. The automobile club’s credit card offer will therefore continue to exist. In addition to Amazon and the ADAC, the telephone provider O₂ and Deutsche Bahn have also discontinued their offers with partner banks.
