13 June 2005
UK online bank Intelligent Finance (IF) has ditched its credit card offsetting system because of the high costs of moving to chip and pin technology.
Nick Robinson, managing director of IF, told BBC Radio 4's Money Box programme it had become too expensive to carry on running the card.
"It has become uneconomical for small card players like ourselves to operate their own IT systems.
"There are massive economies of scale and things like chip and pin have served to accelerate that," Mr Robinson said.
The announcement has frustrated customers who use IF's offset facility to reduce monthly interest charges by setting balances against credits across their accounts.
IF has given its 70,000 credit card customers four weeks notice to repay their outstanding balances or move to a different provider.
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