Credit Saison

Credit Saison Co., Ltd.

Type	Public KK (TYO: 8253)
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	¥274.666 billion JPY (2006)
Net income	¥42.220 billion JPY (2006)
Employees	2,631 (2006)
Website	www.saisoncard.co.jp

Credit Saison Co., Ltd. (TYO: 8253), 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.

History

Credit Saison was founded in 1946 as Midoriya by Torajiro Okamoto. It was originally an operator of department stores specialized in instalments 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 was parted from other retailers of Saison Group, while formed an alliance with Mizuho in early 2000s.

Volume of new contracts

As of March 30, 2006:

• Credit card-related shopping services: ¥ 2,527,808 million JPY
• Agency services: ¥ 747,998 million JPY
• Cash advances: ¥ 618,921 million JPY
• Specialty loans: ¥ 120,117 million JPY
• Leases: ¥ 90,011 million JPY

References

• Annual Report 2006. Credit Saison Co., Ltd. 2006-03-31.
• Fact Book 2006. Credit Saison Co., Ltd. 2006-03-31.

External links

• (Japanese) Saison Card
• (English) Credit Saison Corporate Info