In Brief: 1st USA Buys $340M BellSouth Card Portfolio

Bank One Corp.'s credit card unit, First USA, said Tuesday it has bought the $340 million BellSouth credit card portfolio from GE Capital Financial Services.

The BellSouth card is among a dwindling number of cobranded telephone credit card programs. The programs of Ameritech Corp. and the Pacific Telesis unit of SBC Communications Inc. were recently discontinued, as others have been in recent years.

Marketing of the BellSouth program had halted this year. BellSouth product manager Jeffrey White told American Banker in May that the company has been doing research on "what our customers are looking for" but that "discontinuing the program was not an option." The GE Capital portfolio comprises 450,000 BellSouth credit card accounts. BellSouth has 35 million customers in 19 countries.

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