Woolies MasterCard debuts in two weeks

Woolworths and HSBC, which have been working on the development of a new Woolworths credit card since early this year, yesterday announced they will launch the card in the market on August 26.

The partners also confirmed the credit card will carry the MasterCard marque.

Woolies is expecting big things of its latest venture into retail financial services; 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.