Woolworths has not been deterred by the unhappy experience of running the Ezy Banking financial services venture with the Commonwealth Bank. With that venture largely dismantled the country's biggest retailer is ready to try again.Woolworths and HSBC yesterday announced their entry into a heads of agreement to produce a new Woolworths credit card later this year. The retailer has been in talks with prospective bank partners for more than a year.The retailer would not say how many cards it expected to issue but it did say that it processes 114 million credit card transactions a year, which make up 11 per cent of card volume in Australia.Unlike other retailers, Woolworths has ambitions in financial services that go beyond offering its customers a piece of branded plastic.Last year it joined the Australian Payments Clearing Association as a participant in the Eftpos system and started using its own payments switch, developed in-house.Woolworths established its Ezy Banking joint venture with Commonwealth in 1999.  It was never a happy alliance.Commonwealth stopped issuing Ezy Banking credit cards in 2006 and the debit card business will be wound up in 2009.