Private Credit's Consumer Frontier: JPMorgan Solicited "Second-Look" Partners to Underwrite Rejected Co-Brand Card Applicants
The question opened in late September — whether private credit is about to enter consumer lending through JPMorgan's card empire — is now confirmed in structure, though not yet in counterparties or execution.
What the Wall Street Journal reported (Sept 22, 2026, AnnaMaria Andriotis and Alison Sider): JPMorgan Chase, the biggest U.S. credit-card issuer by purchase volume, "recently explored finding partners to underwrite rejected applications for some of its co-branded credit cards." The mechanics, per the WSJ reporting syndicated in full by LiveMint: "The bank sent out requests to more than a dozen entities to discuss whether they would be interested in so-called second-look applications, which would allow them to take on the risk of approving applications the bank denies."
Why it exists: Co-brand economics. Airlines, department stores, and other merchants "lean on their card programs to attract more customers, boost loyalty and increase revenue," while "banks take on much of the risk associated with whether those cardholders will default on their payments" — and merchants constantly push banks to approve more applicants than the banks' underwriting allows. A second-look program lets JPMorgan keep its underwriting standards (and its co-brand partners happy) while shifting the marginal, higher-risk approvals onto someone else's balance sheet. PYMNTS characterized the model as one "under which private credit firms could fund select applicants rejected under JPMorgan's underwriting standards."
Status: Private credit firms are, per the WSJ headline, "buzzing about getting in on JPMorgan's card empire" — but no participating manager has been named, and JPMorgan has not announced a program. This is a solicitation and exploration stage, not a signed pipeline.
What it means: If it proceeds, this is private credit's most direct entry yet into consumer credit — not corporate lending but unsecured card receivables originated through a bank partnership, with the bank as gatekeeper and the private credit fund as risk-taker on the declined tail. Strategically it rhymes with the SRT channel (European Banks Offload €438 Billion in Corporate Loan Risk via SRTs — Regulators Sound Alarms): banks retain the customer relationship and originate; non-bank capital absorbs the risk tranche the bank doesn't want. It also foreshadows the next regulatory argument — consumer-credit underwriting moving further outside the bank regulatory perimeter, just as the SEC works to widen retail access to the funds that would hold these receivables (SEC Proposes Exam-Based Accredited Investor Status — the Third Gate-Opener for Retail Private-Markets Access). Watch for named counterparties and whether any co-brand partner (airline, retailer) confirms a live program.