JPMorgan Chase To Drop Secured Card Despite Favorable Trends

American Banker, a daily paper that is geared toward banking and financial-services executives, has an interesting story out this morning. In particular, American Banker looks at JPMorgan Chase’s decision to kill WaMu’s secured-card offering, which was first reported by CreditMattersBlog.com last week (link here). The takeaway from the American Banker story is this: Chase’s decision to eliminate the card comes at a time when demand for such offerings is on the upswing. From the story: Bankers and observers said they were surprised by the decision.”This would seem to be the exact wrong time to be getting rid of secured cards,” said Jennifer Tescher, the director of the Center for Financial Services Innovation, a nonprofit affiliate of ShoreBank Corp. “I think they’re going to become an incredibly important tool given the regulatory changes around credit cards that we’ve just seen from the Fed, and the state of the economy, and the state of the average consumer’s credit score.”Indeed, the decision is surprising. Maria Aspan, the American Banker reporter who wrote the story, asked Chase if it had any plans to reintroduce the product in the future. Chase wouldn’t say. My source, however, tells me that Chase is not bringing it back. You can read the entire story here (link). By the way, thanks to American Banker for providing a preview (free) link for my CreditMattersBlog.com readers. The majority of American Banker’s site is subscription based. This story would not normally be available to non subscribers. Related Articles:FICO Score Benefit To Be Discontinued At WaMuWaMu Secured Card First Casualty In JPMorgan Chase Acquisition