Advanta was founded in 1951 by Jack Alter, a Philadelphia schoolteacher, who originally ran the business from his home. Back then, the primary objective of Advanta was to provide personal loans to fellow teachers. Today, Alter serves as CEO of Advanta, which has been publicly traded on the NASDAQ since 1985 and currently has a market cap of approximately $1.2 billion.
Nowadays, the main focus of Advanta is its line of small business credit cards, issued through Advanta Bank Corp. Advanta's main card is the Platinum BusinessCard, which they refer to as "the very best credit card available".