	citicorp cci rules out credit card price war american express co s axp recent launch of a new optima credit card with relatively low  rates and fees will increase competition with bank credit card issuers but will not lead to a pricing war a senior citicorp offical said over the next two to three years a very ing marketing battle will be fought competition will not be on price but on product features pei yuan chia head of the u s card products group told a banking analysts meeting citicorp is the leading u s bank credit card issuer with some mln accounts and an pct market share chia said that citicorp would focus its credit card marketing efforts on acceptance noting that visa and mastercard currently enjoy a two to one advantage over american express in terms of worldwide acceptance he also doubted the popularity of american express plan to link  charges on the new optima card to the bank prime lending rate the consumer likes to have a fixed rate instrument he said richard braddock head of the whole individual banking division added that when there is increased competition it is not the big people who get crunched but the small ones reuter 
