, commonly known as or simply , is a Japanese financial services company affiliated to

Mizuho Financial Group , abbreviated as MHFG, or simply called Mizuho, is a banking holding company headquartered in the Ōtemachi district of Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The name "" literally means "abundant rice" in Japanese and "harvest" in the figurative sense. Upo ...

. Founded in 1951, Credit Saison is the 3rd largest

credit card A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the o ...

issuer with over 20 million cardholders in Japan, behind JCB and Visa Japan.

History

Credit Saison was founded in 1946 as by Torajiro Okamoto. It was originally an operator of

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...

s specialized in installment selling. Seibu Retailing Group, one of the (now former) subsidiaries of

Seibu Railway is a conglomerate based in Tokorozawa, Saitama, Japan, with principal business areas in railways, tourism, and real estate. Seibu Railway's operations are concentrated in northwest Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture; the name "Seibu" is an abbrevi ...

, purchased Midoriya in 1976, attempting to add financial services to its portfolio of customer services. Midoriya's retailing division was transferred to

Seibu Department Stores is a Japanese department store. The first store to trade under the name opened its doors in 1949. Seibu is typical of Japanese department stores with a wide variety of stores doing business on several floors. The company is now a subsidiary of S ...

, and Midoriya itself was renamed retaining

credit Credit (from Latin verb ''credit'', meaning "one believes") is the trust which allows one party to provide money or resources to another party wherein the second party does not reimburse the first party immediately (thereby generating a debt) ...

management division. Seibu Railway spun off Seibu Retailing in 1983 and Seibu Retailing was rebranded as Saison Group. Seibu Credit issued the first Saison Card in 1983. Seibu Credit finally rebranded itself as Credit Saison in 1989, standing one of the ''Big Five'' core businesses of Saison Group. Following the collapse of Japanese asset price bubble in 1990s, Saison Group fell into financial difficulties. The group's longtime president Seiji Tsutsumi was expelled from management in 1991. The group's creditors including

Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank , abbreviated as , was one of the largest banks in the world during the latter half of the 20th century. Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank was created in 1971 by a consortium of two banks: Dai-Ichi Bank, Japan's oldest bank, and Nippon Kangyo Bank, a state f ...

and

Industrial Bank of Japan The Industrial Bank of Japan, Limited (IBJ), based in Tokyo, Japan, was one of the largest banks in the world during the latter half of the 20th century. It combined with Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank and Fuji Bank in 2002 to form Mizuho Financial Grou ...

(now part of Mizuho Financial) pressed the group to restructure its business. Credit Saison parted from other retailers of Saison Group, and formed an alliance with Mizuho in early 2000s.

Saison Card

Credit Saison issues credit cards branded

Visa Visa most commonly refers to: *Visa Inc., a US multinational financial and payment cards company ** Visa Debit card issued by the above company ** Visa Electron, a debit card ** Visa Plus, an interbank network *Travel visa, a document that allows ...

, Mastercard, JCB, or American Express. For their history, many cards are for customers of former Seibu Railway group companies and Seibu Retailing Group companies including

, Seiyu, Parco, and

MUJI (), or is a Japanese retail company which sells a wide variety of household and consumer goods. Muji's design philosophy is minimalist, and it places an emphasis on recycling, reducing production and packaging waste, and a no-logo or "no-bran ...

Sogo & Seibu is a Japanese retail company that operates two department stores: Sogo, and Seibu. It is a subsidiary of Seven & I Holdings Co. See also *Department stores in Japan Department stores in Japan are referred to as ''hyakkaten'' () or ''depā ...

was acquired by Seven & I and left from the group, but Credit Saison and Seven & I founded a joint company and issues Saison Card. As a Mizuho financial group company, Mizuho Bank and many other banks issues cashcard/Saison Card joint card. Credi Saison also issues for many other non-group companies. Annual fees of Saison Card are free for normal cards, 1,575 yen to 3,150 yen for some cards, and 10,500 yen or more for gold or platinum cards.

Volume of new contracts

As of March 30, 2006: * Credit card-related shopping services: ¥ 2,527,808 million JPY * Agency services: ¥ 747,998 million JPY * Cash advances: ¥ 618,921 million JPY * Specialty loans: ¥ 120,117 million JPY * Leases: ¥ 90,011 million JPY

References

*
Annual Report 2006
'. Credit Saison Co., Ltd. 2006-03-31. *
Fact Book 2006
'. Credit Saison Co., Ltd. 2006-03-31.

External links

Official Website

Prepaid Card Vanilla Info
{{Nikkei 225 Financial services companies based in Tokyo Credit cards Companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Financial services companies established in 1946 Japanese companies established in 1946 Fuyo Group