According to a report in The Wall Street Journal citing Uber, the leading ride-hailing app company in the U.S. is launching a credit card for its customers with Barclaycard, a unit of Barclays, the credit card issuer.
“This partnership represents a unique opportunity for Barclaycard to work with a globally recognized disrupter,” a spokeswoman for Barclaycard said in the report.
The credit card is slated to be available in the fall, reported The Wall Street Journal. A person familiar with the deal told the paper that Visa is the likely network for the card, which is the first to come from a ridesharing company. By offering customers a credit card it could help enhance the relationship Uber has with customers at a time when Lyft, Uber’s rival, is raising new funding and expanding into new markets around the U.S.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Lyft is also working on launching a credit card. The paper cited people familiar with Lyft’s plans without providing more details.
A spokeswoman for Uber said the card will be co-branded with Barclays, but she declined to provide more details on the initiative.
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Consumers will be able to make purchases on the credit card outside of Uber. It’s not clear if there will be a reward component to the new payment method.
Currently a handful of credit-card issuers include rewards that can be used for Uber rides. American Express, for example, added $200 worth of Uber rides a year to its rewards offering, noted The Wall Street Journal. Barclaycard has been landing high-profile partners for co-branded cards in recent years, including JetBlue and American Airlines, noted the report.
