- 4 -
honored only in one or more of petitioner's stores, and (2) a
credit card issued by a third-party bank or other financial
institution and honored by many merchants.
Petitioner’s Private-Label Credit Cards
Prior to 1982, petitioner issued no credit cards.
In 1982, petitioner acquired two retailers of women’s
clothing that had preexisting open-end credit plans: i.e.,
credit plans providing for repeated extensions of credit with no
fixed dates for repayment. Petitioner organized two new
subsidiary corporations to take over the operation of those
credit plans. Those two corporations were Limited Credit
Services, Inc. (Limited Credit), a Delaware corporation, and
World Financial Network, Inc. (WFN), also a Delaware corporation.
Limited Credit administered petitioner's open-end credit
operations. WFN funded the consumer credit associated with the
open-end credit systems through a receivables financing facility.
Eventually, Limited Credit and WFN came to operate credit plans
for some of petitioner's other stores.
The credit plans operated by Limited Credit were established
under the retail installment sales acts enacted in each of the
50 States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Limited
Credit was required to comply on a State-by-State basis with
varying limitations on interest rates, minimum finance charges,
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Next
Last modified: May 25, 2011