TY  - JOUR
AB  - Studies the U.S. credit card industry in the late 1990s and early 2000s. After an industry background review, a discussion of generic strategies follows in which strategies, like product proliferation and cost improvements, are achieved through superior IT. These strategies are exemplified using the leading players in the industry. On the other hand, these strategies are easily imitable, the basic product is standardized, and the industry is highly fragmented. What accounts then for the exceptional level of profitability enjoyed by this industry?To examine psychological biases that are forces which can shape industry performance. Evidence shows that consumers' attitude toward credit is prone to “irrational” failure to exercise self-control and the inability to fully anticipate future borrowing behavior. A simple model is provided showing that these peculiarities in consumer psychology enable an industry, with otherwise few inherent drivers of superior profitability, to achieve superior performance. Ethical and regulatory issues are then debated.
VL  - 
IS  - 
SN  - 2474-6568
DO  - 10.1108/case.kellogg.2016.000388
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/case.kellogg.2016.000388
AU  - Al-Najjar Nabil
AU  - Malik Ali
PY  - 2017
Y1  - 2017/01/01
TI  - The U.S. Credit Card Industry
T2  - Kellogg School of Management Cases
PB  - Kellogg School of Management
SP  - 1
EP  - 16
Y2  - 2024/04/26
ER  -