BMO Financial Group today announced that it has agreed to acquire Citigroup's Diners Club North America franchise, giving BMO exclusive rights to issue Diners Club cards to Canadian and U.S. corporations.
The deal, expected to close March 31, 2010, will more than double BMO's corporate card segment. According to
BTN's2009 Business Travel Survey, BMO, which issues cards on the MasterCard payment network, reported $1.2 billion in T&E volume charged by U.S. corporations in 2008. Total purchasing card volume in 2008 was $4 billion. According to BMO, Diners is used by 6,000 North American businesses and nearly 250,000 cardholders to manage their T&E.
The acquisition agreement also gives BMO nearly $1 billion in net receivables and about $7.8 billion in card transactions. BMO in a statement said Citigroup would support the Diners Club business until it is fully integrated with BMO.
Discover Financial Services completed the acquisition of the Diners Club international network from Citigroup for $165 million
in July 2008.