Quick Stats

Type – Public (NYSE: DFS)
Founded – 1985, introduced by Sears
Headquarters- Riverwoods, Illinois, U.S.
Key people – David Nelms (CEO), Roy Guthrie(CFO
Industry – Financial Services
Products – Discover Card, credit card
Revenue – US$2.458 billion (FY 2006)
Employees – 12,000
Website – Discover.com

Brief History

The Discover Card was originally introduced by Sears in 1985, and was a unit of Dean Witter, which merged with Morgan Stanley in 1997. In 2007, the unit was spun off as an independent, publicly traded company.

Products And Services

See A List Of Discover Cards And Student Discover Cards Here
In the United States, Discover, as a card brand, competes primarily with Visa, MasterCard, and American Express. Unlike Visa and MasterCard, Discover directly issues its cards, through its Discover Bank unit. Discover is the fourth largest credit card issuer, when measured by card balances, behind Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Citi, and ahead of Capital One and American Express.

In addition to its card products, Discover also markets savings products, home loans, and student loans. The company also began offering a Discover Debit card product directly to banks in 2006, through its Pulse interbank network, which Discover acquired in 2004.