verification . please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . january 2010 learn how and when to remove this template message discover financial services inc. type public traded as nyse dfs s & p 500 component industry financial services founded 1985 ; 31 years ago 1985 as a subsidiary of sears headquarters riverwoods illinois u.s. key people david nelms chairman and ceo products payment systems revenue us 8.73 billion fy 2015 1 operating income us 3.6 billion fy 2015 1 net income us 2.2 billion fy 2015 1 total assets us 88.09 billion 2016 2 total equity us 8.2 billion fy 2011 3 number of employees 11 650 fy 2011 3 website discover.com discover financial services inc. is an american financial services company which issues the discover card and operates the discover and pulse networks . discover card is the third largest credit card brand in the united states when measured by cards in force with nearly 50 million cardholders . contents 1 history 1.1 discover acquires diners club 1.2 discover acquires home loan center 1.3 discover and tarp 2 competitors 3 business 4 references 5 external links history edit the discover card was originally introduced by sears in 1985 and was a unit of dean witter which merged with morgan stanley in 1997 . in 2007 the unit was spun off as an independent publicly traded company . today discover is headquartered in the chicago suburb of riverwoods illinois . on december 21 2001 fourth quarter income at discover card issuer discover financial services inc. grew 31 % to 193 million compared with 147 million the year before . 4 on march 5 2002 the company announced that the account center at discovercard.com had registered over eight million card members an increase of 61 percent since january 2001 . 5 that september they announced that as of september 1 citibank would accept the discover r card for cash advances at its approximately 450 financial centers and more than 2 000 atm locations nationwide . 6 discover acquires diners club edit in april 2008 discover financial and citigroup announced that discover was purchasing the diners club network from citigroup for 165 million . in may 2008 the federal trade commission approved the transaction . the deal was completed on july 1 2008 . 7 discover stated that the diners club network which is a major network outside north america will be merged with the discover network a major network in north america creating an international network for discover network cards and diners club cards . diners club cards will continue to be issued by diners club international licensees . discover bank has no plans on issuing diners club branded cards itself . on september 17 2010 it was announced that discover financial would acquire citigroup owned student loan corporation for 30 share . 8 the deal was finalized on december 31 . 9 discover acquires home loan center edit on june 6 2012 tree.com inc. completed the sale of substantially all of the operating assets of its home loan center inc. business to a wholly owned subsidiary of discover financial . in exchange for the assets sold discover paid an aggregate of 45.9 million including payments made prior to the closing which were applied to the closing price . 10 on june 12 2012 discover began originating mortgages with its launch of discover home loans offering prime variable and fixed rate conventional and fha home mortgage loans . discover and tarp edit following the 2007 08 financial crisis discover received about 1.2 billion in bailout funds under the troubled asset relief program also known as tarp . the company announced in 2010 that it had received approval to pay back the funds . 11 competitors edit in the united states discover as a card brand competes primarily with visa mastercard and american express . citation needed unlike visa and mastercard discover directly issues its cards through its discover bank unit . citation needed discover is the fourth largest credit card issuer when measured by card balances behind bank of america jpmorgan chase and citi and ahead of capital one and american express . citation needed business edit in addition to its card products discover also markets savings products personal loans student loans and home mortgage loans . the company also began offering a discover debit card product directly to banks in 2006 through its pulse interbank network which discover acquired in 2004 . references edit a b c https investorrelations.discover.com investor relations financials annual reports default.aspx http www.forbes.com global2000 list 8 header assets sortreverse true search discover % 20financial a b discover financial services 2011 annual report form 10 k filing date jan 26 2012 pdf . secdatabase.com . retrieved june 30 2012 . discover s fourth quarter net income grows 31 % . discover card account center launches online sweepstakes ; click pay and win with smartcheck on discovercard.com . discover card now accepted for cash advances at citibank ; discover card is now accepted at all u.s. citibank financial centers and atms . miller james p. 2008 07 01 . discover completes purchase of diners club . chicago tribune . retrieved 2008 07 01 . discover financial buying citigroup s student loan corp. . crain s chicago business . 2010 09 17 . retrieved 2014 12 19 . press release discover completes acquisition of the student loan corporation . 2011 01 11 . retrieved 2014 12 19 . tree.com completes sale of certain assets of home loan center inc. to discover . discover lifts the tarp . forbes . retrieved 14 september 2013 . external links edit chicago portal companies portal discover financial services official corporate site discover card official credit card site discover bank official banking services site discover network official merchant acquirer and issuer services site discover student loans official private student loan site discover home loans official home mortgage loan site discover personal loans official personal lending site v t e 50 largest banks and bank holding companies in the united states ally american express bancwest bank of america bank of new york mellon bb & t bbva compass bmo harris capital one charles schwab cit citigroup citizens comerica deutsche discover e trade fifth third first niagara ge capital goldman sachs hsbc bank usa huntington john deere jpmorgan chase key m & t morgan stanley mufg union mutual of omaha nationwide new york community northern trust people s united pnc popular rbc usa regions santander state farm state street suntrust svb synchrony td tiaa u.s. usaa wells fargo zions indicates the u.s. subsidiary of a non u.s. bank . inclusion on this list is based on u.s. assets only and is current as of december 31 2015 . retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title discover financial & oldid 736832066 categories companies listed on the new york stock exchangefinancial services companies of the united statescompanies established in 1985companies based in lake county illinoishidden categories articles needing additional references from january 2010all articles needing additional referencesall articles with unsourced statementsarticles with unsourced statements from august 2015 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages edit links this page was last modified on 30 august 2016 at 03 39 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view