About 88,000 Fulton Financial Corp. credit-card holders soon will have a new company servicing their accounts.

Jim Shreiner, Fulton Financial executive vice president, said Monday that the company has inked a deal with Elan Financial Services, which will service Fulton's $85 million credit-card portfolio.

"It really is a partnership. We didn't sell our customer base, we sold the assets," Shreiner said. "We want to continue to build this business."

Lancaster-based Fulton Financial, with assets of $15.9 billion, will continue selling its credit-card products and services through its 10 affiliate banks.

The agreement, announced Friday, is expected to earn Fulton a 2008 pre-tax gain of about $10 million. The actual gain will depend on the balance of the portfolio on the sale date, among other factors.

The deal with Elan, a Minneapolis-based division of U.S. Bancorp, is expected to close in 45 days.

Fulton's decision follows a trend where community banks and credit unions have outsourced or consolidated credit-card portfolios — a business that requires volume to be successful in today's business climate, Shreiner said.

"It just makes a lot of sense. You need a lot of scale to really make it work economically," Shreiner said.

Fulton Financial will continue to issue credit cards and receive "extensive revenue sharing going forward," according to Shreiner.

Shreiner said Fulton Financial will continue to earn a fee on each new card issued and a percentage of each customer's credit-card transaction.

"We will have less gross revenue going forward, but because of the efficiencies gained in the partnership we believe that we will do very well in terms of a bottom line," Shreiner said.

The deal will affect about 10 credit-card servicing jobs at Fulton's East Petersburg offices.

"We expect to have about 10 less positions dedicated to this business, but with the size of our company and with our normal openings that occur, we believe we'll be able to absorb those people into the rest of our operations," Shreiner said.

Shreiner said the agreement includes strong marketing support from Elan, a bolstered cash-back rewards program and a card program geared toward students.

Fulton Financial, a financial holding company with more than 3,900 employees, operates more than 265 banking offices in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and Virginia.

Despite the change, Fulton likely will continue to service the cards here for another 10 months.

Laura Wakeley, Fulton Financial spokeswoman, said customers can continue to pay credit card bills at bank branches. She said any decision to change fees or adjust credit card rates would be up to Elan.

E-mail: pburns@lnpnews.com