Estimates show that approximately twenty to fifty percent of all credit card accounts are sold into special trusts which are setup up by the major credit card banks.

It is most common for cardholders to not even know that their credit card accounts were sold.  When their accounts are sold to special trusts, nothing will appear differently to the account holder.  Their contacts and relations with the original card issuer remain basically unchanged.  A call to customer service, from these cardholders, will be handled the same way as account holders of the initial issuing bank.  The only difference is that all their monthly payments are directed to the trust instead of the bank.  The payments are used to make principal and interest payments to investors.

Card issuers often combine together millions of card accounts.  The balances for these card accounts are usually considered as assets to that bank.  In some occasions, banks would sell these accounts to security trusts.  Doing so will mean instant funds for the bank, instead of waiting years for those accounts to be paid off through monthly payments.  Security trusts will then in turn sell the credit card receivables to large investors such as mutual funds, pension funds or other banks and insurance companies.

The capital received from security trusts are used by credit card issuers to distribute additional credit cards, keep interest rates low, and fund reward programs.