Different CC brands target different parts of the demographic. Amex targets superprime, BoA/Chase is more prime-subprime, Discover leans subprime, etc. Differe

Different CC brands target different parts of the demographic. Amex targets superprime, BoA/Chase is more prime-subprime, Discover leans subprime, etc. Different brands also have different business models. Amex relies very heavily on interchange, Chase is a balanced mix iirc, Citi is more interest, and different companies have everything in-between. This is a deliberate strategy -- issuers split people into transactors, who never carry balances and pay off their CC bills every month, and revolvers, who carry balances and pay interest. It's a core strategic decision to target how much of your customer base you want to be one vs the other. To a first order, defaults are subsidised by the high interest rate that they pay. Transactors primarily earn the banks interchange revenue, which is a more stable part of the business, and revolvers primary earn the banks interest, which obviously carries with it much greater credit risk. To a second order, some issuers securitise their portfolios into different tranches, and the default risk is thus pushed to the debt purchasers. It gets much more complicated from there, with different scoring models to determine spending patterns, default risk, bust-out risk, etc. (As an aside, there's a fascinating story around Synchrony switching from FICO to VantageScore a while back, thus making it much more complicated to securitise their CC portfolio) But, in general, credit card interchange is a cost built into everything you buy, and on which the prime-superprime consumer receives a rebate.