Things are heating up in the credit cards industry as CIBC announced that they’ve bought Citigroup’s Canadian credit card business for $2.1B. This deal will make CIBC the largest dual credit card provider (Visa and Mastercard) in the country and increases their outstanding credit card balance to over $14B. It includes Citi’s co-branded cards such as Petro Canada offering Petro Points.
This comes along with yesterday’s announcement that Walmart Canada’s recently opened bank launched a new rewards credit card called Walmart Rewards. The discount retailer could provide very stiff competition to other providers with their massive global reach and loyal customer base.