American Express and Synchrony are among the bidders looking to replace JPMorgan Chase as the issuer of Amazon’s co-branded credit card, Bloomberg and Reuters reported Tuesday.
JPMorgan could get a 15% premium on top of the balance — which is north of $15 billion in loans, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
JPMorgan’s Amazon card gives Prime members 5% cash back on purchases made on the retailer’s website and its subsidiary, Whole Foods. Such perks make it the fastest-growing of the 10 largest co-branded cards, a 2019 study by Packaged Facts found.
Amazon and JPMorgan have partnered on cards since 2002, but the nation’s largest bank is hardly the retail giant’s only credit-card partner. Amazon has active ties with both of the aforementioned leading bidders: Synchrony launched a secured-credit product with the retailer in 2019, and the company has long issued Amazon’s private-label card. AmEx offers a co-branded Amazon card aimed at small-business owners.
Taking over a retailer’s credit-card partnership can serve as a lucrative windfall for a bank. Goldman Sachs, for example, took General Motors' credit-card business away from Capital One last year for about $2.5 billion — and it’s reportedly competing with Barclays to take over JetBlue’s credit-card portfolio.
However, although "the massive co-brand portfolio would be a huge win for loan balances, the significant rewards associated with the [Amazon] program could be prohibitive, as evidenced by JPMorgan potentially being willing to walk away," Sanjay Sakhrani, an analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, said in a note Tuesday, according to Bloomberg.