Coles Myer's long anticipated credit card initiative is still not out of the blocks in spite of repeated forecasts of the card's imminent launch in, for example, the Financial Review, including one attributed to Coles chief executive John Fletcher, back in September 2002, when the Coles board was at war with then director Solomon Lew. Fin Review writers have often predicted the appearance of the credit card "in a few weeks" frequently since then.As widely reported, in this journal and elsewhere, the Coles Myer credit card when it turns up, is to be provided and funded by GE Capital, and is (or was) expected to be a MasterCard branded card.The twist, however, is that MasterCard is prevented under a contract with Commonwealth Bank from supporting the issue of a MasterCard credit card by a retail chain, in competition with CBA's own Woolworths Ezy Banking MasterCard.The CBA contract with MasterCard is apparently clear cut MasterCard cannot allow its member, GE Capital, to issue a MasterCard branded credit card with Coles. MasterCard, though, is said to be looking for a loophole in the contract, and is also said to be endeavouring to persuade CBA to agree to using the MasterCard brand on the proposed Coles Myer credit card.An alternative is for GE and Coles to issue a Visa card. GE Capital, however, is not a member of Visa, and the group's chief executive for consumer finance in Australia and New Zealand, Tom Gentile, said yesterday that GE was not seeking to join Visa, and that it was in partnership with MasterCard. He declined to comment in response to questions over MasterCard's contractual problems with CBA in relation to the proposed Coles Myer credit card.While technically not currently qualified to join Visa since GE Capital is not a bank in Australia GE will overcome that hurdle soon. Gentile separately confirmed this week that GE Capital was in the processing of seeking authorisation from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority for registration s a specialised credit card issuer. Once GE gains this limited banking licence, GE would be eligible for membership of Visa if it wanted to apply, and Visa would be obliged admit GE as a member, given the Reserve Bank regulation on access to Visa and other designated credit card systems.