American Express has been in the credit-card business a long time and that mastery will be valuable to some banks.

That is what Peisner, a 44-year-old veteran of the credit-card business, has discovered.

The fourth-largest credit-card business in the country was put up for sale yesterday.

Citicorp, which bought Mellon's credit-card business this year, is ending the program.

Nonetheless, while this may be a short relationship, it allows Nationsbank to expand its small credit-card business.

The bank sold its credit-card business to Citicorp for $828 million, a figure analysts say is top dollar.

Citigroup just announced that its credit-card business would voluntarily end the practice.

In the credit-card business, for example, the banks issue cards only to checking-account customers.

These are the "revolvers," and the credit-card business feeds on them.

Mr. Rock said that was especially a problem in attracting new credit-card business.