Not having the ability to sell other products and services to credit union members and other bank customers appears to have influenced Bank of America to stop issuing credit cards in partnerships with credit unions and other financial institutions.

The bank has stopped issuing credit cards with between roughly 40 and 50 credit unions.

In a statement about its strategic shift, the bank appeared to allude to this conflict.

“In many cases, our agent-bank business has serviced predominantly single-service card customers with limited opportunity for Bank of America to do more business with them, the bank said.

Traditionally, Bank of America, like other agent issuers of CU-branded credit cards, has agreed not to cross sell credit union cardholders other banking products and services and the bank had concluded that those cross-selling opportunities were those that made the business worthwhile.

“We decided earlier this year that the agent-bank relationship, where we issue cards on behalf of other financial institutions, was not core to our goal of building deeper relationships and we began the process of exiting those relationships,” wrote Bank of America spokeswoman Betty Riess.