EasyJet’s founder will launch an online credit card, EasyMoney, with London Scottish and Accucard.
Self-styled people’s champion Stelios Haji-Ioannou, who founded cut-price UK airline EasyJet, has announced a move into online finance in partnership with home collected credit specialist London Scottish and online credit card provider Accucard. By the end of the first year the alliance expects to have 75,000 EasyMoney cards in circulation. At just over 0.1% of the total credit and charge cards in issue, such volumes are hardly likely to have the big guys quaking in their boots.
But the venture is interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly, it will allow customers to construct a bespoke profile of annual fee, interest charge and cashback rewards to match their requirements best. While not quite the groundbreaking concept Mr Haji-Ioannou claims – cahoot has been offering a similar choice for months – it does claim to offer complete flexibility, unlike its more established rival.
The promise of a loyalty scheme within six months is also interesting. Having seen the benefits reaped in the late 1990s by HFC/Centrica’s Goldfish card by being able to offer money off gas bills, Easymoney will hope it can generate equivalent business by extending a similar scheme to the Easyjet, EasyEverything (Internet cafes) and EasyRentacar businesses.
Perhaps most interesting is the decision to team up with London Scottish and Accucard. In its mission statement Accucard states that ‘individuality should be acknowledged and celebrated, not suppressed or categorised’. Equally London Scottish: its business is based on lending to individuals refused credit from mainstream providers. And furthermore, the Easy brand attracts the ‘budget’ consumer, resulting in a card which will appeal to those traditionally excluded from mainstream credit.
A problem for the venture in its current form will be that only around 25% of such people have online access, limiting EasyMoney’s potential reach within this much-eyed market. While the partners have not announced any plan to cross-sell the card to home collected customers via London Scottish’s door-to-door lending agents, such a move appears to be the natural next step.
