Diners Club International, founded as Diners Club, is a charge card company formed in 1950.
Diners Club International, founded as Diners Club, is a charge card company formed in 1950 by Frank X. McNamara, Ralph Schneider and Matty Simmons. When it first emerged, it became the first independent credit card company in the world that established an idea of a self-sufficient company producing credit cards for travel and entertainment. Diners Club International and its franchises service high net, affluent and well travelled individuals from around the globe with operations in 59 countries.
Towards the end of the 1960s Diners Club also faced competition from banks that issued revolving credit cards through BankAmericard (later renamed Visa), and Interbank MasterCharge (later renamed MasterCard). Diners Club began early on to allow franchises of the Diners Club name, at first in Europe and later throughout the world, for many years eclipsing the BankAmericard or Interbank MasterCharge networks abroad. Amoco also issued for a time its own co-branded Diners Club cards called American Torch Club, and Sun Oil Company issued its version called Sun Diner Club Card.
In 1981, Citibank, a unit of Citigroup, acquired Diners Club International, the franchisor that holds rights to the Diners Club trademark, and many of the largest franchises worldwide. A majority of the abroad franchises remain independently owned.
In a transaction completed July 1, 2008, Discover Financial Services purchased Diners Club International from Citi for $165 million. The deal was announced in April 2008 and approved by the U.S. government in May 2008. By merging the North American Discover Network with the international Diners Club Network, Discover created a global payment processing system. Discover Bank has no plans to issue Diners Club-branded cards, which continue to be issued by Diners Club International licensees.
In 2011, Discover began putting its logo on Diners Club cards. Some payment processors, like PayPal, can only process new Diners Club cards with the Discover logo on them.