United Services Automobile Association, which serves members of the U.S. military and their families, told customers it's dropping its partnership with MasterCard Inc. in favor of Visa Inc.
USAA will change customers' MasterCard-branded credit and debit cards for Visa cards throughout 2016, the financial services company said on its website. Customers will keep the benefits associated with the old cards, USAA said.
"This provides us the opportunity to offer more benefits including the elimination of foreign transaction fees for all USAA Visa credit cards in 2016," USAA said on its website.
USAA, based in San Antonio, offers financial services to its members, including insurance, banking and retirement planning.
"In our business wins and loses will happen," Chris Monteiro, a spokesman for Purchase, New York-based MasterCard, said in a statement. "While we don't like losing anything, this is part of our business and we factor this into how we work. Specifically, this news doesn't affect our outlook for revenue or profits. We had this development factored in when we issued our new three-year financial objectives at our recent investor day."
