MINNEAPOLIS — Target Corp. has stopped issuing Visa credit cards to its shoppers and is now offering new cardholders access to the company’s proprietary credit card.

Target Corp. has stopped issuing Visa credit cards to its shoppers and is now offering new cardholders access to the company’s proprietary credit card.

Shoppers who already have a Target Visa card — about 70% of Target’s credit card holders — are not affected by the change.

“The whole purpose is to drive retail sales, and this is doing that,” a Target spokesman says.
Internal research, he notes, shows that shoppers who use the company’s in-house credit cards tend to spend more than those with the Visa cards.

In a statement issued the day Target announced its plans to stop offering the company’s credit cards, Visa Inc. said it “respected” the retailer’s decision.

“We look forward to working with Target to provide existing Visa Target cardholders with the value they have come to enjoy with a product that can be used both in Target stores and at millions of merchant locations worldwide,” Visa said.

Target, one of the few retailers to retain its own credit card business, took significant write-downs on that operation in the fourth quarter of 2008, but the business has improved as the economy recovers.