Bread Financial Faces Challenges as Credit Costs Continue to Rise

After the sale of Epsilon in 2019 and spinoff of LoyaltyOne in 2021, Bread Financial is now solely a consumer credit company, with its private-label credit cards and buy now/pay later businesses its only two product lines. However, Bread’s retail credit card business is under pressure as it continues to lose major partners, losing Wayfair and Meijer to Citi in 2020 and BJ's Wholesale Club to Capital One at the start of 2022. We see retail partner loss as an ongoing threat to Bread as the firm does not have a competitive advantage that would give it an edge in retaining partnerships during contract renewal negotiations.