American Express and Discover tied for the top spot in J.D. Power’s annual U.S. Credit Card Satisfaction Study, American Banker reported on Thursday (Aug. 28).
JPMorgan Chase finished third, with Barclays, U.S. Bancorp, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Capital One Financial, Citigroup and GE Capital Retail Bank rounding out the top 10 in the study.
American Express, which targets affluent customers with 21 different cards having an array of features, has been the top-ranked issuer in all eight years J.D. Power has performed the study. Discover, which has a single card that offers cash back on accumulated purchases and no annual fee, has ranked high in the past, and this year improved enough to get the same score as AmEx.
“It’s not that American Express is falling back, it’s that they both have been improving,” said Jim Miller, senior director of banking services at J.D. Power. The company measured card issuers on six factors: interaction, card terms, billing and payment, rewards, benefits and services, and problem resolution.
A number of regional banks and credit unions have recently launched new cards or revamped their card programs, and these upstarts could steal customers from bigger players by keeping things simple and easy for consumers to understand, Miller added. “Where they have the advantage over a number of these larger issuers is their relationships with their customers,” he said. “We find that when credit card customers have that existing deposit relationship with a bank, that helps with satisfaction.”
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