Biggest credit card issuers in the U.S. based on user count, 2019-2020

Of the banking institutions in the United States that issued credit cards, Citibank and Chase were the only ones with over 80 million active accounts. This according to estimates based on either credit card expenses per issuer, or outstanding credit loans per issuer. Note that an issues like Chase does not issue their own branded credit cards, but use Visa or MasterCard instead. The number of Visa credit cards in circulation in the United States was over 300 million by 2020, whereas overall MasterCard credit cards were below that.

Why credit cards?

Credit cards are popular in the United States. Unlike debit cards, credit cards do not require funds to be present before purchase and are therefore not necessarily linked to a bank account. It is common for card holders to own more than one credit card. Reasons for this include benefits such as rewards programs, as well as the fact that some retailers only take certain credit card brands.

The downside of buying on credit

Since credit cards allow the user to defer payment, some users spend more than they can pay immediately. This leads to credit card debt. Since the interest rates on credit card plans are generally over 10 percent, this debt is difficult to pay off. With such a large number of credit cards in circulation in the United States, many analysts watch levels of credit card debt closely.