THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 19, 1996 TAG: 9609190341
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TOM SHEAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 50 lines
Cox Communications Inc. and NationsBank Corp. have teamed up to offer a VISA credit card to Cox's cable-TV and direct-TV subscribers, including 260,000 in Hampton Roads.
Card-users will receive a rebate of $2 for every $100 of purchases, which they can apply to their payments for Cox's premium cable channels and pay-per-view shows, Atlanta-based Cox said Wednesday.
``We are trying to use our card as a retention and loyalty tool,'' said Patti Marciano, Cox's brand manager for the card. In addition, ``we want to provide payment convenience to our customers.''
The Cox-NationsBank venture is the latest card partnership that promotes a company's name and product while offering consumers an incentive to use a particular credit card. Dozens of companies, ranging from automakers General Motors and Ford Motor to American Airlines and General Electric, have already joined banks to issue these ``co-branded'' cards.
Marciano said Cox chose NationsBank for its partnership because of the bank's experience with co-branded cards and its standards for customer service. NationsBank, which employs 1,549 at its credit-card processing center in Norfolk, already issues co-branded cards for the airline USAir, the Blockbuster chain of video-rental stores and five Time Publishing Venture magazines, including Southern Living.
For NationsBank, the partnership with Cox provides another opportunity to expand its roster of card customers and earn interest income from those cardholders who carry balances from one month to the next.
The dark blue card bearing the Cox Communications name and logo will have no annual fee. For the first six months, NationsBank will charge users an introductory interest rate of 5.9 percent.
After six months, NationsBank will charge a variable rate pegged to the prime interest rate, the base rate for many corporate and consumer loans. The variable rate will be the prime plus 8.9 percentage points, 9.9 percentage points or 12.9 percentage points, depending on the card applicant's creditworthiness.
With the prime rate at 8.25 percent, the full annual percentage rate on the Cox-NationsBank card will range from 17.15 percent to 21.15 percent.
Hampton Roads is one of 11 cable-TV markets where Cox and NationsBank are introducing the card. Cox, which has 3.2 million cable subscribers nationwide, said the card eventually will be offered in all 20 of its cable markets.
Cox and NationsBank said they will promote the card with a combination of television, print and direct-mail advertising beginning this month. ILLUSTRATION: Card-users will receive a $2 rebate they can apply to
their cable payments for every $100 of purchases. by CNB