Diners Club International
Diners Club International Ltd. (DCI), founded as Diners Club, is a payment network owned by Capital One. Diners Club and its franchises are accepted in over 200 countries and territories. Card issuers operating in approximately 45 countries have exclusive individual licenses to issue cards on the Diners Club network in a given country.
Overview
Diners Club International Ltd. (DCI), founded as Diners Club, is a payment network owned by Capital One. Diners Club and its franchises are accepted in over 200 countries and territories. Card issuers operating in approximately 45 countries have exclusive individual licenses to issue cards on the Diners Club network in a given country. The company was formed in 1950 by Frank X. McNamara, Ralph Schneider (1909–1964), Matty Simmons, and Alfred S. Bloomingdale. It was the first independent payment card company in the world, successfully establishing travel and entertainment (T&E) credit cards as a viable business. Citibank bought Diners Club in 1981, then sold it to Discover Financial in 2008. Capital One then acquired Discover Financial in 2025.
History
The idea for Diners Club was conceived at the Majors Cabin Grill restaurant in New York City in 1949. Diners Club cofounder Frank McNamara was dining with clients and realized he had left his wallet in another suit. His wife paid the bill, and McNamara thought of a multipurpose charge card as a way to avoid similar embarrassments in the future. He discussed the idea with the restaurant owner at the table, and the following day with his lawyer Ralph Schneider and friend Alfred S. Bloomingdale. McNamara returned to the same restaurant the following February, in 1950, and paid for his meal using a cardboard charge card and a signature. The story became well known. Diners Club official history refers to this meal as "The First Supper", and is credited by historians as the beginnings of contemporary credit. Various versions of the story differ about whether it was a lunch or dinner at which McNamara forgot his wallet, and whether the bill was paid on loan or McNamara waited for his wife to drive his wallet to him. According to Diners Club press agent Matty Simmons, that never happened and the story was invented. Some journalists later credited Alfred Bloomingdale with the idea for Diners Club. McNamara and his attorney, Ralph Schneider, founded Diners Club International on February 8, 1950, with $1.5 million in initial capital. Alfred Bloomingdale joined briefly, then started a competing venture in California before merging his California-based Dine and Sign with Diners Club. McNamara's original conception was to make a card that could be used as a means of payment in restaurants around New York City; however, he later expanded its usage to other types of establishments, including hotels, car rentals, and flower shops. The company started building its customer base by offering their cards to prominent businessmen. Shortly afterward, Matty Simmons, the company's first press agent, started advertising the card in newspapers, magazines, and by sending personal mail to potential customers. Diners Club International was named for being a "club of diners" that would allow patrons to settle their bill at the end of each month through their credit account. When the card was first introduced, Diners Club listed 27 participating restaurants, and 200 of the founders' friends and acquaintances used it. Diners Club had 20,000 members by the end of 1950 and 42,000 by the end of 1951. At the time, the company was charging participating establishments 7% and billed cardholders $5 a year. In 1952, McNamara sold his interest in Diners Club to his partners for $200,000. The first plastic Diners Club card was introduced in 1961; by the mid-1960s, Diners Club had 1.3 million cardholders. Towards the end of the 1960s, Diners Club faced competition from banks that issued revolving credit cards through Bank of America's BankAmericard (renamed Visa), and Interbank Master Charge (renamed MasterCard). In 1981, Citibank, a unit of Citicorp, bought Diners Club International, including the franchisor that holds rights to the Diners Club trademark. Despite this, a majority of the franchises abroad remain independently owned. In July 2008, Discover Financial acquired the Diners Club International network from Citigroup for $165 million. Capital One then acquired Discover Financial in 2025 in a $35.3 billion all-stock deal.
International franchise
In 2011, Discover began incorporating its logo on Diners Club International cards. Several payment processors, like PayPal, can process only new Diners Club International cards, which include the Discover logo, as well as BMO Bank's Diners Club-branded Mastercards issued in North America.
United States
In December 2009, Bank of Montreal acquired the franchise in North America from Citigroup. New personal cards are no longer issued in the United States.
Argentina
Citibank licensed the Diners Club brand in Argentina to Banco Comafi from December 2013 until August 2021, after which Diners Club was no longer offered in Argentina.
Australia
In July 1974, Ansett Transport Industries purchased a 50% shareholding in the Australian franchise. In January 1999, Ansett sold its shareholding to Citigroup. In 2012, as part of a financial reform program started the previous year to address government spending by public servants, the Australian government appointed Diners Club as the sole provider of credit cards for government travel services. Under the arrangement, Diners Club provided charge cards as travel cards to public servants (e.g. Defence Travel Card). Diners Club was also to supply an updated Expense Management System (EMS), to government agencies without one, or who wanted to upgrade their existing system. The new EMS would provide "timely, accurate and reliable” transactional data feeds for all card expenditure to agency finance or expense systems, allowing them to understand the nature of their travel expenditure, due to the “comprehensive data” that would be provided through the system from travel supplies. Diners Club provided Diners Club Travel Cards to government public servants with a companion Mastercard to increase the number of locations that accepted the card, to reduce cash advance withdrawals of travels allowances. After the Diners Club withdrawal from the Australian market, most government departments have adopted Visa for their card transactions. In June 2022, National Australia Bank (NAB) acquired Citigroup's Consumer Banking business in Australia, including the Australian branch of Diners Club. The Diners Club Corporate Card, Citi Mastercard Corporate Executive Companion Card, Diners Club Business Card and the Citi Mastercard Business Companion Card previously marketed under the Citibank brand were brought under the NAB brand as a result of the acquisition. In November 2023, Diners Club Australia announced that it was ending personal cards in January 2024, with no transactions possible after that date. Subsequently, it announced that all business and corporate cards were ending in April 2024. All Diners Club accounts were closed in September 2024, ending Diners Club's presence in the Australian market.
Brazil
In November 2018, it was announced that Diners Club International and Brazilian card association Elo were extending their partnership: they launched Elo Diners Club International Cards in Brazil. The cards run via the Discover Global Network, and are accepted at 42 million merchant locations and 2 million ATMs in over 190 countries and territories.
China and Hong Kong
In September 2017, Diners Club International signed a deal with Allinpay, a Chinese payment provider, to be the exclusive carrier of all the cards that are part of the Discover Global Network. Apart from that, Allinpay intended to increase the card acceptance in Hong Kong, especially by "travel oriented merchants".
Chile
In Chile, the Diners Club franchise was long held by Citibank Chile until it was acquired by Banco de Chile in 2008, who then took over said franchise.
Colombia
In Colombia, the first Diners Club franchise was opened in 1963. In 2005, Davivienda gained the license to issue Diners Club in Colombia.
Europe
Diners Club has franchises in some European countries, such as Austria, Germany, North Macedonia, Slovenia, Spain, and Switzerland for example. Those franchises generally only issue Diners Club cards to residents of their respective countries. However, since January 2025, ISX Financial has become a pan-European Diners Club franchisee, issuing the Flykk Diners Club debit card in several European markets.
India
Diners Club was the first to introduce credit cards in India. Kali Mody is credited with opening the first Diners franchise in the country in 1961, which started an invitation-only credit card issuance. Its cards have been offered by Citibank India, followed by HDFC Bank which took over in 2011. In 2021, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) barred the company (along with American Express) from issuing new cards for failing to follow norms about storing data within the country. The ban was lifted later in the year after it complied with the RBI guidelines.
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