Earn a Cashback Bonus®
With A Discover Card

One of the newest major brand company cards today remains to be the Discover Card. The massive retail store Sears produced this card in 1985 and maintained 50+ million cardholders. Now, the card is run by a subsidiary of Morgan Stanley. Additionally, Morgan Stanley plans to separate Discover into its own company by the end of September 2007. While it remains to be one of the newest brand cards, this credit card issuer also has a shorter history than many other card companies.

In 1981 Sears bought the Dean Witter Reynolds Organization and Caldwell, Banker & Company. With these two companies merged, the Sears Financial Network was produced. The Discover Card quickly gained popularity in the United States as it offered no annual fee, lower interest rate and a Cashback Bonus®. While it remains to be around today, it is without Sears. After inventing the card, Sears quit accepting other credit cards, which ultimately turned many customers away. By 1993, Sears was bought out and the Dean Witter foundation took over this portfolio of credit cards. In 1997, Dean Witter merged with Morgan Stanley. Since April 2005, Morgan Stanley repeatedly suggested it would send Discover into its own business but then decided not to. As of December 2006, Morgan Stanley plans to spin off Discover by September 2007.

In 2004, Discover went up against Visa and MasterCard in court as Visa and MasterCard would not allow banks that issued their cards the opportunity to also issue Discover Cards. Discover won in the court of law. Likewise, this credit card began to be offered through financial services that also issued Visa and MasterCard. These financial services included GE Consumer Finance and HSBC.

While Discover is not as widely accepted or approved worldwide as Visa and MasterCard, it maintains over 50 million card members and 4 million retail and bank locations that accept the card. Canada offers only a few American based retail establishments and establishments that favor American tourists, like car rental agencies and hotels, that accept Discover. While no Canadian ATM's are available for cash withdrawal for Discover users, consumers can get cash at Canadian Sears stores. While Europe does not accept it either, many other countries including Belize, Palau and the Caribbean Islands have started accepting the Discover Card. Likewise, it is thought that the card will become the largest accepted American card in China. Discover is also on its way to being widely accepted in Japan and ATM machines throughout the United Kingdom. While the card is only twenty-three years old, it has proved to be on the rise throughout the United States and on its way worldwide.

When choosing a credit card issued by Discover, you not only have the options of student, personal, and business credit cards, you also can choose between cards with unique designs. The benefits of these cards with distinct designs are the same. This extra option give you a chance to personalize the card to your unique taste.

With Discover, you can earn a lot of money. Keep in mind though, there's not much point in earning cash back when you have to pay money in finance charges each month. Make sure that you pay off your Discover Card in full each month! If you haven't found a card issued by Discover that you're interested in, check out some other cash back credit card information.