If you want to start a credit card, called an Affinity Card, your logo goes on a Visa or Mastercard. But it’s run by one of the banks who takes a huge slice of the profits and gives you a small commission on all transactions. That’s pretty much every card from Westjet to Petro Can, Starbucks and pretty much any card with a company logo.
The Canadian Tire Mastercard is very different: Not in the use, not in the Mastercard logo or in the way you use it – but behind the scenes.
Did you know there’s actually a Canadian Tire Bank with 1,400 employees? And it’s their own bank that has the Canadian Tire Mastercard. In the 10 years this latest Mastercard has been out, it’s reached $8 billion in outstanding balances! The credit card income – and it’s a lot – is now over a third of the entire company’s profits! Oh, and in 2014 Scotiabank bought 20% of it.
It’s one of the reasons Canadian Tire can give out more perks than the industry average of 1.5% of your spending. They don’t have any of the commissions to pay to third parties – their credit card income is all theirs.