Diane Offereins
EVP; President of Payment Services, Discover Financial Services
Last January, Discover and Facebook became friends.
In a partnership put together by Diane Offereins' team in payment services, Discover teamed up with the social media network to roll out the Facebook Card, a prepaid product that can be used to send gifts (such as dinner at Olive Garden) to friends via their Facebook profile.
It was Discover's second partnership with an emerging payments player. Last August, the company announced a deal with PayPal that's expected to help the eBay-owned network get access to 2 million retail point-of-sale outlets.
At the same time, Offereins continues to build business through more traditional channels. Last year the company expanded the list of high-profile merchants accepting Discover/Diners Club cards, including Neiman Marcus and In-N-Out Burger, and ATM acceptance for Discover/Diners Club recently reached a milestone of 1 million outlets globally.
It now has 98 percent of the reach of MasterCard and Visa, and beats out American Express, in the number of U.S. merchant outlets accepting its cards. And in May, Offereins' division served up another groundbreaking deal in a worldwide business payments agreement with business-to-business commerce network Ariba that enables businesses to cut down their use of paper checks.
