The impending shift of NFL Properties LLC co-branded credit card issuing relationship to Alliance Data Systems Corp. from incumbent Barclays US LLC is a reminder that the professional football league's "not for long" moniker may be as applicable to payments partnerships as the careers of coaches and players.
With U.S. credit card balances slowly recovering from pandemic lows, the most outsized year-over-year changes in outstanding receivables continue to be fueled by actions associated with the initiation and termination of co-brand and private-label card partnerships.
Just as Barclays PLC's U.S. arm prepares to add a significant partnership with retailer The Gap Inc. along with a sizable associated portfolio of receivables, it will be divesting what would appear to be a smaller NFL Extra Points card portfolio approximately 11 years after it won the business from long-standing incumbent Bank of America Corp.
In a pattern consistent with many of its large domestic card-issuing peers, Barclays US reported year-over-year growth in consolidated credit card receivables of 1.8% in the third quarter, ending a stretch of six consecutive declines. Meanwhile, the combination of Alliance Data's Comenity Bank and Comenity Capital Bank posted its smallest year-over-year decline during the current cycle at 0.4% in the third quarter.
An eventual decline in payment rates to more normal levels, the prospective impact of rising consumer prices and growth in retail sales during the holiday season on already strong purchase volume statistics, and incremental actions taken by individual issuers to stimulate balance growth could promote expansion across the industry in 2022.
Neither Alliance Data nor Barclays US disclosed the size of the portfolio linked to NFL Properties, the authorized representative of the National Football League and its 32 member clubs for the licensing and protection of their names, logos, symbols and other identifying marks. The amount of NFL receivables selected by Barclays for inclusion in its Barclays Dryrock Funding LLC master trust portfolio may be instructive, however.
As of June 30, according to a prospectus filed in conjunction with a September securitization, the $5.88 billion trust portfolio included $157.5 million in receivables tied to the NFL down from a peak of $270.2 million three years earlier. The trust portfolio represented 29.8% of the consolidated credit card loans reported as of June 30 by the Barclays US bank holding company. Alliance Data President and CEO Ralph Andretta, speaking Dec. 7 at an investor conference, said the partnership will provide access to a base of 140 million NFL fans and includes the option to incorporate buy-now, pay-later installment lending capabilities through the affiliate that operates under the Bread name.
Perks associated with the existing NFL card include 2x points on team purchases, a 20% discount on NFLShop.com purchases and a 0% promotional annual percentage rate for 6 months on eligible NFL ticket purchases.
Andretta expects the NFL deal to close in the first quarter of 2022. The targeted completion date for the Barclays US purchase of the existing Gap portfolio from Synchrony Financial is in the second quarter of 2022. Synchrony reclassified $3.5 billion of loan receivables associated with the Gap portfolio to held-for-sale status in conjunction with an August agreement to divest the portfolio.
In years past, Barclays lost out on a sizable partnership with outdoors retailer L.L.Bean Inc. with its associated $1.5 billion in receivables to Citigroup Inc. It also transitioned holders of the former Barclaycard Visa with Apple Rewards Card to a nonbranded product as Apple Inc. focused its attention on the Apple Card, which is issued in partnership with The Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Meanwhile, Alliance Data absorbed the loss of a partnership with housewares retailer Williams-Sonoma Inc. to Capital One Financial Corp. in the third quarter. The company reported in connection with the investor conference that it generated receivables growth of about 2% in November, and it expressed confidence for a previously issued targeted range of expansion in the high single to low double digits in 2022.
The past and envisioned trajectory are not necessarily unique to Alliance Data. Consolidated credit card loan growth at the bank holding company level turned positive in the third quarter after extended periods of contraction at JPMorgan Chase & Co., Capital One, Wells Fargo & Co. and Discover Financial Services, for example. U.S. commercial banks, on a combined basis, posted 1.3% year-over-year expansion in consolidated credit card loans for the period, though they remained nearly 9.3% below their level of two years prior.
Headwinds from high payment rates may lessen in the absence of new federal government stimulus so long as consumer spending remains strong.
Alliance Data is seeking to generate receivables growth by deepening existing customer relationships as well as inorganic growth as exemplified by the new NFL partnership.
"We're not doing anything irrational," Andretta said regarding the latter strategy, "but I think there is some irrationality in the marketplace today for receivables." The company has carved out a niche with what its CEO termed its "string-of-pearls" approach to small to midsized partnerships that typically are associated with high margins and limited degrees of customization. But Andretta noted that the NFL deal shows that the company can "play with the big guys" in a competitive market for larger partnerships.
"It's nice to be a first-round draft pick," he said.