Thread: The History of the Discover Credit Card

The Discover credit cards were launched in 1986 by non other than Sears, Roebuck and Company – whom at the time were the largest retailer in the USA. A few years prior Sears acquired real estate company Coldwell Banker as well as a brokerage firm, Dean Witter Reynolds. With the introduction of the Discover card, the idea was to make Sears a multi-purpose financial services business too. The new arm of the company was known as the Sears Financial Network.

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The Discover credit cards gained popularity within a short time. A main draw was the fact that these cards carried no annual fee. Although that’s almost expected today with credit cards, back then it was almost unheard of to have credit cards with no annual fee. Another selling point was that Sears Financial Network would tend to offer their cardmembers higher credit limits than Visa or MasterCard. Sears eventually took the benefits a step further by offering a “Cashback Bonus” depending on how much was spent on their card. They gained an exclusive deal with the U.S. Customs Service as being the only credit card which people could use to pay their customs duty fees.

Sears stopped accepting any competitor cards once their Discover credit card was introduced. This was an attempt to increase the cardmember base but it ended up backfiring – this discouraged many potential customers and thus losing out on their purchases. To make matters worse, since Sears was the number one retailer at the time, many of their competitors would refuse Discover card – believing that accepting it would only help out their competitor.

By the late eighties Sears was facing problems and in 1993 they decided to sell off their financial services branch. Dean Witter Reynolds became was now responsible for the Discover card. Shortly after Sears began offering major credit cards again, such as Visa and MasterCard. In 1997 Morgan Stanley acquired Dean Witter.

Morgan Stanley teetered back and forth on selling off the Discover card. Finally on June 30, 2007, Discover Financial Services was spun off and now trades on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol “DFS.” The timing almost certainly was planned to compete with the IPOs of Visa and Mastercard, whom both went public in 2007 and 2008.

Discover has a cardmember based of over 50 million people and is accepted by more than 4 million merchants domestically. Outside the United States the Discover credit card is not widely accepted but it can be used at many ATMs across the globe. Although it is not accepted in Europe yet, the card’s acceptance continues to widen in Central America and South America in countries such as Mexico, the Caribbean, Belize, and many others.

In May of 2005 the company formed a partnership with UnionPay Network of China. This deal surprisingly rocketed them past the competition in China – Discover is now the most widely accepted American credit card there… more than the heavyweights American Express, Visa, or MasterCard. A year later Discover formed a similar arrangement with the JCB network in Japan. Discover cards operate on the Pulse ATM network which they purchased in 2005.

The credit cards currently offered by Discover. As an affiliate advertiser of their products, we are happy to extend to you these offers:

Discover More Credit Card - I recently opened one of these and am very satisfied. This card offers 5% cashback bonus in categories like travel, home, apparel, gas, restaurants, movies, and more. You also get an unlimited 1% cash back on all other purchases. Plus there’s a 5% to 20% cashback bonus at top online retailers. There’s no annual fee. In my opinion this is the most rewarding Discover card out there. Below are some of the designs offered. You can click on any of them to go directly to the Discover webpage for it:



Discover Motiva Credit Card – offers up to a 1% cash back bonuses depending on much you spend annually. If you make your payments on time you receive 1 month of interest paid reimbursed, twice per year.


Miles By Discover – With this card you earn double miles for your first $3,000 spent on travel and at restaurants per year. One mile per dollar after that amount and for other purchases.


Escape By Discover *EDITOR'S CHOICE* – The ultimate travel reward cards. Earn double points on all your spending - that's twice as fast! Unlike other travel cards, the annual fee is only $60. (Click on the card below to get this special offer!)

I'm soooooo excited!! I've had a card forever that only had a $500 limit. I was able to get it increased to $3000 finally then I applied for the Discover More and they approved me for a $13,000 credit limit!!!!! I didn't get the instant decision online but was informed in the mail a couple weeks later. I'm so happy to have a legit credit card with a good limit before this I had all these junky store cards with low credit limits because that was all I could get.

Everyone If you've had bad credit in the past just hang in there and do it right and you can get back on track to great credit. If I can do it anyone can!!!!!

I never knew exactly how old or where Discover came from until I read that. Good read. If they're still young like that I bet they'll gain some steam over the next couple decades to compete with the other big guys.

Really? From what I knew Discover wasn't too hard to get a card from. I always thought it was Amex that would make you jump through hoops to qualify.