Credit cards are issued by credit card companies, which isn’t a surprise. What might surprise you is that these credit card companies are actually banks and this is why sometimes they are referred to as issuer banks or just issuers.

Credit card companies include Citibank, American Express, Chase, Discover, Bank of America, Capital One, HSBC, and many others. The name of the credit card company usually appears on the front of a credit card in big fancy letters (usually on the top right or the top left corners). If you can not tell which is your credit card company by looking at the front of your card you might have a co-branded credit card.

Whenever you want to check your credit card balance, pay your credit card bill, or need to dispute a transaction that appears on your credit card statement, you contact your credit card company — their info is always on the back of the credit card. Credit card networks (i.e. VISA, MasterCard, etc.) are different than credit card companies.

For your convenience, we also have a telephone directory for all the major U.S. credit card companies.

If you are not sure which credit card company is right for you, you can get credit card advice by our proprietary ‘Credit Card Advisor’ tool.