World’s Top Ten Credit Card Companies Enjoy Significant Increase in Brand Value

Feb. 3, 2010 - PRLog -- According to the annual BrandFinance® Banking 500 report into the world’s most valuable banking brands, American Express has maintained its position as the world’s most valuable credit card brand, despite a tough year for the credit card market, with consumers cutting back on spending.

American Express saw its brand value increase by 43% last year to US$11.6 bn in a top ten dominated by American brands. Citi, a newcomer to this year’s credit card rankings, has a brand value of US$6.2 bn with VISA coming third with a 6% increase in brand value. Chase and Mastercard are rated fourth and fifth respectively.

Despite the market turmoil, all of the top ten credit card brands have increased in value except for the two Japanese brands, MUFG (a 1% drop in brand value) and Credit Saison, which recorded a 12% drop in brand value.

“Our survey shows that all segments of the banking industry have recovered,” explains David Haigh, CEO of Brand Finance. “The credit card segment has seen significant growth with the top ten credit card companies averaging a 29% increase in brand value.”

In the overall survey, HSBC retains its place as the most valuable banking brand in the world for the third year in a row, increasing in brand value by 12% to US$28.5bn. Bank of America, the second most valuable global banking brand increased in brand value by 24% to US$26.1bn. However, smaller US brands showed much higher percentage increases than Bank of America including Goldman Sachs, Chase and JP Morgan (106%, 53% and 45% respectively)

Santander is the world’s fastest growing retail bank brand, coming third overall in the Top 500. The Spanish banking group saw its brand value rise by US$14.8bn, an increase of 136% to US$25.6bn. A significant factor in the growth in Santander’s brand value has been the consolidation of Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley brands under the Santander brand.

Ends.

Notes For Editors

First published in 2006, The BrandFinance® Banking 500 was the first publicly available study analyzing the financial value of the world’s top 100 banking brands. For the third year in succession, the analysis has been extended to the world’s Top 500 banking brands. It is published annually and incorporates data from all listed companies globally. Each brand is accorded a brand rating: a benchmarking study of the strength, risk and future potential of a brand relative to its competitor set as well as a brand value: a summary measure of the financial strength of the brand.

About Brand Finance

Brand Finance is an independent global business focused on advising strongly branded organisations on how to maximise value through effective management of their brands and intangible assets. Since it was founded in 1996, Brand Finance has performed thousands of branded business, brand and intangible asset valuations worth trillions of dollars.

Its clients include international brand owners, tax authorities, IP lawyers and investment banks. Its work is frequently peer-reviewed by the big four audit practices and its reports have been accepted by various regulatory bodies, including the UK Takeover Panel.

Brand Finance is headquartered in London and has a network of international offices in Amsterdam, Athens, Bangalore, Barcelona, Cape Town, Colombo, Dubai, Geneva, Helsinki, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Lisbon, Madrid, Moscow, New York, Paris, Sao Paulo, Sydney, Singapore, Toronto and Zagreb.