Providian Financial Corp. and PayPal Inc., an online payment service, plan to issue a co-branded credit card this spring.
Consumers will be able to use the card in all online and offline merchant locations that accept credit cards. PayPal plans to make the card available without membership fees. It is in the process of developing marketing campaigns for the card and would not comment about advertising.
The companies will share revenues associated with each transaction on the card. Spending limits have not been finalized.
“Providian has 16 million customers. In order to build a customer base that large, you must know the credit market very well,” said Vince Sollitto, director of communications at PayPal, Palo Alto, CA.
As part of the partnership, which was finalized on Tuesday, Providian has taken an equity stake in PayPal, Sollitto said, declining to specify.
PayPal is a service that lets consumers and businesses send and receive money from bank accounts and other credit cards via the Internet. The 2-year-old company primarily targets online shoppers and frequent online auction participants.
PayPal has roughly 6 million user accounts and adds approximately 20,000 new accounts per day, according to Sollitto.
