December 14,2006
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Sam's Club to Accept MasterCard
Sam's Club, the membership warehouse retailer division of Wal-Mart Stores, recently announced that it will soon start accepting MasterCard as a form of payment within its stores... to the exclusion of Visa cards. In what has been the latest battle in the war between the two biggest credit card networks in North America, the massive retailer (with stores in the U.S., Puerto Rico, and Canada) decided a major victory for MasterCard with the decision.
It is not usual for merchants to take either Visa or MasterCard at the exclusion of the other, as the two are usually grouped together. American Express has a strong and global reputation, but with much higher merchant acceptance fees, and Discover Card's acceptance in Sam's Club's part of the world is still narrow.Sam's Club will still take Visa cards (along with MasterCard) at its gas station pumps, and will accept both Visa and MasterCard branded debit cards, along with cash or check, as forms of payment within its retail stores. Industry insiders speculate that Sam's Club is attempting to mine a customer base with more money, as MasterCard holders pay a $35 annual fee. The logic behind this theory is that Sam's Club is trying to keep up with Costco and other strong competitors in the warehouse discount retailer market.