My wife and I recently got a credit card through Working for Change. When she called to sign up, she found out that the Working Assets CC is “backed by” MBNA. According to Buy Blue, MBNA donates heavily to Republican politicians (which doesn’t necessarily mean MBNA doesn’t support progressive causes, but I take it as a general indicator they don’t.) So, if one uses a Working Assets credit card, does one not also support MBNA (which, to some extent, negates the reason we signed up for the credit card in the first place)? What’s the relationship between the companies?
Please note that I don’t want to start a debate in any way, I’m asking a factual question that happens to be motivated by political considerations.
This is an instance of “co-branding” or “affinity marketing.” Not surprisingly, your local humane society, or left-wing/right-wing nutjob political organization (I mean that in the most non-partisan way), or favorite sports team, or even consumer products company, doesn’t have the infrastructure to process, finance, and settle millions of credit card transactions, run credit checks, etc. So, most affinity cards are simply private-branded versions of national-bank-sponsored credit cards. Household Finance, or Citibank, or, yes, MBNA, are quite good at performing all the functions noted, and will allow third-parties to offer private-branded versions of, say, an MBNA credit card specially tailored to their constituencies. Maybe the interest rate is a bit more favorable. Maybe you qualify for discounts to your sports team’s games. And maybe there’s a way to donate a bit of money to some cause.
Without going into who pays/receives exactly what, you can be pretty sure that MBNA and your organization would not have done this deal if they weren’t capable of both “profiting” from it. Your guys get some fixed, de minimis, payment. MBNA probably gets all the interest, most of the annual fees, the late fees, etc., just as with any other bank card (because they are the ones taking the credit risk).
I doubt you will find a bank that doesn’t give to the GOP (and probably also to the Dem. PACs – big companies have to play both sides). I also doubt you will find a charity or non-profit that can sponsor an affinity card without the involvement of a large national bank.
So – yes, MBNA is profiting from you, and may indirectly be sending some (minute) part of this profit to people you consider nasty. But, your pals are also getting some (minute) part of the aggregate profit generated by your card-holding. May be the least-worst situation you can hope for.