More than a year after buying Pulse EFT Association, Discover Financial Services LLC announced that holders of Discover credit cards can withdraw cash at automated teller machines connected to the Pulse debit network.
Discover, a Riverwoods, Ill., unit of Morgan Stanley, said Tuesday that its Discover Bank had joined the Pulse network, which has 250,000 ATMs nationwide.
Discover cards had been accepted at 100,000 ATMs, connected to other networks, which will continue to accept the cards.
Discover bought Pulse, of Houston, in January 2005.
Jan Martin, the vice president of marketing for Discover Card, said the delay in hooking its cards to the ATM network was part of “an orderly transition plan to integrate the businesses.”
“We focused on some of the network issues initially, and more recently we put more emphasis on the card side of the business,” Ms. Martin said Tuesday.
She would not say how often Discover cardholders use their cards at ATMs. Such transactions are considered cash advances or loans, and frequently come with high annual percentage rates. Ms. Martin would not provide Discover’s rates, saying they are “account-specific and vary across the portfolio.”
Only Discover’s credit cards can be used at ATMs, not the signature debit cards it announced in February.
Ken Kerr, the vice president of retail payment strategies for ESP Payments Research, a division of Phoenix Marketing International in Rhinebeck, N.Y., said the decision announced Tuesday could make Discover more visible to consumers.
Discover “is not as universally accepted as Visa and MasterCard,” Mr. Kerr said. “This is a move to give Discover greater presence in the wider world.”
He said few people use Discover cards for cash advances, but Richard X. Bove, an analyst with Punk, Ziegel & Co. of New York, said, “I think it happens a little more than you think. When they get into trouble” – when they are unemployed, for instance – “they hit those ATMs for cash, because they don’t have any other way to get cash.”
