Charging Forth;

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SOME SHOPPERS WHO HAVE overloaded their bank cards can still charge ahead at their favorite small stores. Shopping centers are beginning to fish for customers with plastic bait -- credit cards good at shops within a particular mall.

A handful of large, upscale malls in Southern California have their own cards, and the idea is catching on. "There is movement in all parts of the country among varying-size centers. I'd say you'll see a fairly rapid expansion in the next 12 to 18 months," says Terry Dorrington, special-projects director for Melvin Simon & Associates, a shopping-center developer that is considering using the cards.

The new cards are attracting financial heavy hitters -- Bank of America, Avco Financial Services, and General Electric Credit -- that are eager to take advantage of the high interest rates commanded by credit card loans. Merchants pay the card issuer a percentage of sales that is competitive with what Visa and MasterCard charge.

Shopping centers use the cards to build customer loyalty and mailing lists. "Centers are trying to create a stronger image in the marketplace, an image of the center itself as a place to go," says Jackie Bivins, executive editor of Chain Store Age Executive magazine. The cards create intra-mall competition, too. Small stores use them to compete against big department stores, which have been slow to accept mall cards, because they typically issue credit cards of their own.

The mall cards, which are free, may attract customers who don't want to pay fees for national credit cards, and people who are bumping up against credit limits. "That $200 sale that couldn't be made because MasterCard said no is going to be made because the Galleria said yes," says Allan Rosenberg, of Eye+Tech, an optical-products store in the Galleria at South Bay, in Redondo Beach, Calif.