Choice was a credit card

test market A test market, in the field of business and marketing, is a geographic region or demographic group used to gauge the viability of a product or service in the mass market prior to a wide scale rollout. The criteria used to judge the acceptability ...

ed by

Citibank Citibank, N.A. ("N. A." stands for "National bank (United States), National Association"; stylized as citibank) is the primary U.S. banking subsidiary of Citigroup, a financial services multinational corporation, multinational corporation. Ci ...

in the

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, announced in 1977, and first issued in 1978. It was one of the first cards to offer a cash refund program, and no annual fee. Choice was intended to create a rival to Visa, MasterCard, and

American Express American Express Company or Amex is an American bank holding company and multinational financial services corporation that specializes in payment card industry, payment cards. It is headquartered at 200 Vesey Street, also known as American Expr ...

, but proved unsuccessful, and was withdrawn in 1987. Citibank has continued to use the "Choice" name on some of its Visa and MasterCard cards. The card was introduced in 1977, when Citibank bought NAC, a regional credit card based in

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, renaming it Choice. A subsequent campaign in

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...

in 1980 turned the card into a regional success, earning more than one million cardholders in the Baltimore and

Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

, area. With a view to nationwide expansion, the test market was expanded to include

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. Despite the success of

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co., commonly known as Sears ( ), is an American chain of department stores and online retailer founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosen ...

Discover Card Discover is a credit card brand issued primarily in the United States. It was introduced by Sears in 1985 and currently issued by Capital One. Discover was the first credit card that did not charge an annual fee and offered a higher-than-norm ...

, which offered many of the same features as Choice when it was introduced in 1985 (such as a rebate on purchases and no annual fee), Citibank decided Choice could not compete with Visa and MasterCard in the longer term, and the card was reissued as a Visa at the end of 1987, aimed at entry level customers and those with poor credit. It was also said that Citibank's owner, Citicorp, was not willing to accept the eventual estimated costs of establishing another national credit card, after Sears had spent an estimated USD$80 million creating its Discover Card. Its fate was similar to that of Citibank's first credit card, the "First National City Charge Service" (or " The Everything Card"), introduced on the East Coast in 1967 to compete with BankAmericard (today's Visa) but which became part of Master Charge (now MasterCard) in 1969.

References

Citigroup Credit cards in the United States Products introduced in 1977 {{econ-stub