Four years after losing QVC Inc.'s private-label credit card business, GE Consumer Finance has won it back, largely by letting customers pay their card bills online.
Mark Tabak, the vice president of administration for QVC, the West Chester, Pa., company best known for its cable television shopping channel, said the General Electric Co. unit also offered to put more transaction information on the bills than the previous issuer, HSBC Holdings PLC.
"It is a very competitive environment," Mr. Tabak said in an interview Tuesday, the day QVC announced the switch back to GE Consumer Finance.
HSBC did not return a call seeking comment by press time.
When QVC started offering its private-label Qcard in around 1990, it used GE Consumer Finance as its issuer, Mr. Tabak said. That arrangement lasted until 2001, when QVC switched to Household International Inc., which HSBC bought two years later.
HSBC's contract was scheduled to expire this year. He said he began the most recent contract renewal process about a year before the expiration, because the job is so complex. "It takes a year to go through the whole renewal, if you do a good job and look at the lay of the land," he said.
In addition to letting visitors watch a live feed from the cable TV channel, QVC's Web site offers a link to information about the card. Mr. Tabak said the site's tech-savvy shoppers would enjoy the online payment option that GE now provides. The GE contract will run for five years, but the price, the portfolio's size, and other details are private, he said.
The switchover has already been made and was not noticeable to cardholders, Mr. Tabak said; the card's terms and conditions did not change. GE bought the receivables from HSBC.
GE recently regained the top spot in private-label issuing after briefly losing it to Citigroup Inc.'s Citi Commerce Solutions. Household (now HSBC Finance Corp.) has been ranked third by The Nilson Report for years.
QVC says it generated $6 billion of net sales last year, more than some traditional retailers, such as Bloomingdale's. Its shopping channel, which is available to 96% of U.S. homes with cable TV and nearly 21.4 million with satellite TV, offers jewelry, clothing, electronics, and other products 24 hours a day. Customers can place orders online or by telephone.
"QVC has a strong brand and customer base," Margaret Keane, the president and chief executive of GE Consumer Finance's Retail Consumer Finance unit, said in a press release Tuesday. "The Qcard is a great financing option."
