*** Welcome to piglix ***

Credit Saison

Credit Saison Co., Ltd.
Public KK (: )
Industry Financial Services
Founded 1946 in Tokyo
Headquarters Tokyo, Japan
Key people
Torajiro Okamoto, Founder
Hiroshi Rinno, CEO
Products Credit card
Insurance
Consumer finance
Revenue Increase¥274.666 billion JPY (2006)
Increase¥42.220 billion JPY (2006)
Number of employees
3,689 (2015)
Website www.saisoncard.co.jp

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 1946, Credit Saison is the 3rd largest credit card issuer with over 20 million cardholders in Japan, behind JCB and Visa Japan.

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 expelled from the management in 1991. The group's creditors including Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank and Industrial Bank of Japan (now part of Mizuho Financial) 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.

Credit Saison issues credit cards Saison Card branded VISA, MasterCard, JCB, or American Express.


...
Wikipedia

...