Amazon renews prime credit card deal with JPMorgan Chase

Amazon has renewed its contract with JPMorgan Chase, allowing the bank to issue its Prime credit card to Amazon customers, bringing an end to months of negotiations. The Amazon Prime Rewards card was a highly desired co-brand deal in the industry as it offers a huge scope of Amazon’s loyalty program. According to people who are associated with this deal, the loyalty program has an approximate number of 150 million U.S. members.

JPMorgan has been a consistent partner of Amazon for over two decades as they have been issuing credit cards to its customers. However, this did not deter Amazon from seeking new bids and attempting to replace JPMorgan Chase in mid-2021.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Amazon has seen a sharp growth in their business as people had to stay back home, and they could order their required products online, whereas other segments of the card involving entertainment, hotels, restaurants, etc. had seen a decline in business. This made Amazon the most lucrative choice in the U.S. market to partner for the Prime credit card.


American Express and Synchrony were among other contenders for grabbing the Prime credit card deal. And Mastercard has also tried to displace Visa as their payment network. As per those closely associated with this deal, these companies have missed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to crack the deal and penetrate Amazon and take their card business a step higher.

If the Prime credit card deal had gone to another party, this would have made big news and the company would have got instant credibility from clients all across.

The Prime credit card negotiations included discussions where JPMorgan could sell off its loan portfolio and walk out of their decades-long partnership. As per sources, loans held at the bank’s Chase division made by the Amazon Prime customers were approximately $20 billion.

And selling off the loan portfolio to another company would make for a relentlessly taxing process as Amazon would need to switch over millions of customers to the new bank they partner with while ensuring that all their cards still function seamlessly. Many believe that JPMorgan Chase has leveraged this point to continue with its partnership with Amazon.