It seems that the big supermarkets are beating a hasty retreat from financial services --Tesco Bank sold to Barclays, Sainsburys sold to Nat West. Can’t say I’m too surprised.
I’m not familiar with NewDay as a store card provider, so I’m curious how it would work? Any insights? 
What I mean is, The Argos Card could only be used in Argos i’r Sainsbury’s stores. Does moving to NewDay potentially mean it would become a general credit card instead?
I expect in time it’ll be exactly that, a credit card - perhaps with a preferential rate for Sainsburys Group spend.
Something notable about this acquisition - NewDay are paying £720m for this one card offer.
For context - Coventry BS paid £780m for the entirety of Co-op Bank.
That to me suggests this portfolio must be wildly profitable. Indeed I was once told that when JS acquired Argos the entire profit of the business lived in the Financial Services division.
No doubt that’s changed now - Argos’ lease burdon has been slashed to the bone (there are hardly any standalone stores now compared to the point of acquisition). They are increasingly moving toward a click and collect offer, that being the case in future they will perhaps be better offering a choice of consumer finance options online, and dispensing of the need to train in-store staff on finance regulation etc.
The Argos card is (or was) already a normal credit card that you could use anywhere. The difference was with Argos purchases you could get a longer interest free period (90 days?).
There were two products offered by Argos -
- The credit card (can’t recall who provided it)
- The store card
The latter allowed the buy now pay later plans at Argos stores (56 days, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, etc.) and initially could be used in Homebase until they sold it, and then it could be used in Sainsbury’s. It’s the store card that’s been sold to NewDay.
Not sure what happened to the credit card?
The credit card was issued by Vanquis and I think that they did interest free for three months, but last I saw it must be getting on for ten years back, so not 100% sure.
Current one is a store card