Credit Saison


Credit Saison Co., Ltd., commonly known as Credit Saison or simply Saison, is a Japanese financial services company affiliated to Mizuho Financial Group. Founded in 1951, Credit Saison is the 3rd largest credit card issuer with over 20 million cardholders in Japan, behind JCB and Visa Japan.

History

Credit Saison was founded in 1946 as Midoriya by Torajiro Okamoto. It was originally an operator of department stores specialized in installment selling.
Seibu Retailing Group, one of the subsidiaries of Seibu Railway, purchased Midoriya in 1976, attempting to add financial services to its portfolio of customer services. Midoriya's retailing division was transferred to Seibu Department Stores, and Midoriya itself was renamed Seibu Credit retaining credit management division.
Seibu Railway spun off Seibu Retailing in 1983 and Seibu Retailing was rebranded as Saison Group. Seibu Credit issued the first Saison Card in 1983. Seibu Credit finally rebranded itself as Credit Saison in 1989, standing one of the Big Five core businesses of Saison Group.
Following the collapse of Japanese asset price bubble in 1990s, Saison Group fell into financial difficulties. The group's longtime president Seiji Tsutsumi was expelled from management in 1991. The group's creditors including Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank and Industrial Bank of Japan pressed the group to restructure its business. Credit Saison parted from other retailers of Saison Group, and formed an alliance with Mizuho in early 2000s.

Saison Card

Credit Saison issues credit cards Saison Card branded VISA, MasterCard, JCB, or American Express.
For their history, many cards are for customers of former Seibu Railway group companies and Seibu Retailing Group companies including Seibu Railway, Seiyu, Parco, and MUJI. Sogo & Seibu was acquired by Seven & I and left from the group, but Credit Saison and Seven & I founded a joint company and issues Saison Card.
As a Mizuho financial group company, Mizuho Bank and many other banks issues cashcard/Saison Card joint card.
Credi Saison also issues for many other non-group companies.
Annual fees of Saison Card are free for normal cards, 1575 yen to 3150 yen for some cards, and 10500 yen or more for gold or platinum cards.

Volume of new contracts

As of March 30, 2006: