Discover Card
Under Sears ownership, in 1986, the firm launched the Discover Card, a new brand of credit card outside the well established Visa, MasterCard and American Express networks. Unlike other attempts at creating a credit card to rival MasterCard and VISA, such as Citibank's Choice card, the Discover Card quickly gained a large national consumer base. It carried no annual fee, which was uncommon at the time, and offered a typically higher credit limit than similar cards. Cardholders could earn a "Cashback Bonus," in which a percentage of the amount spent would be refunded to the account (originally 2%, now as high as 5%), depending on how much the card was used. Discover offered merchant fees significantly lower than those of other widely accepted credit cards. Eventually, Discover grew to become one of the largest credit card issuers in the U.S.