Starter and secured credit cards. Small revolving credit as a reputation-building device.
It is a financial instrument.
It exists to relieve No history, so no one will lend. That is the whole reason it is here: nothing enters this map without a human problem behind it.
It could not exist without Card payment networks and Credit bureaus. These are the quiet preconditions — remove any one and the solution stops working.
Solving that problem created new ones: Revolving credit compounds against the borrower. Follow those and you find the next generation of products built on top of this one.
12 organisations in this map sell it, 12 of them publicly listed.
Its neighbourhood
Everything this entry connects to directly. Click any point to follow it.
The line back to a human being
2 hops from a person at a phase of life. The further a thing sits from the person, the more abstract it looks — and the more it tends to be mistaken for something that came from nowhere.
- SolutionStarter and secured credit cards
- FrictionNo history, so no one will lend
- Life phaseEarly adulthood
- Rooted inScarce resources
- Rooted inUncertainty
Relieves
Created these new problems
Second-order frictions. This is where most of the modern economy actually lives.
Requires
Who sells it
| Organisation | Value | Type | Products |
|---|---|---|---|
| JPMorgan Chase | $800B | public · JPM | Chase mortgages, Chase credit cards, auto finance |
| Visa | $650B | public · V | payment network, debit and credit rails |
| Mastercard | $550B | public · MA | payment network |
| Bank of America | $350B | public · BAC | mortgages, credit cards, Merrill wealth management |
| Wells Fargo | $260B | public · WFC | mortgages, home equity lines, credit cards |
| American Express | $220B | public · AXP | charge and credit cards, travel services |
| Capital One | $130B | public · COF | credit cards, Discover network, auto finance |
| BNP Paribas | $90B | public · BNP | retail banking, consumer finance, Arval leasing |
| Nu Holdings | $70B | public · NU | digital bank in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia |
| Synchrony Financial | $25B | public · SYF | store credit cards, CareCredit for medical and vet bills |
| Chime | $10B | public · CHYM | Chime checking, Credit Builder card, SpotMe |
| Gemini | $3B | public · GEMI | exchange, credit card |