Monday, January 19, 2009

About The The History of Credit Cards

By Jason Asthworth

When Edward Bellamy wrote the novel Looking Backward in 1887, he brought up the novel idea that each person would own a credit card that they would use to buy items. This was the first time the term credit card was introduced to the world.

Credit cards were first utilized by motorists in the United States in the 1920s during the car boom. They were however originally referred to as charge cards and with time, various firms permitted the use of different cards. In those days it was a piece of cake to forge a credit card since many of them were printed onto a type of card material and not plastic as they are nowadays.

Another type of credit card that appeared in the 1930s and 1940s is the Charga-plate. The credit card was made of a small piece of metal and had the owners name, city of residence, and the state in which the person resided imprinted into it. The Charga-plates were most of the time kept in a store and only large retailers made use of these, and they only issued them to their everyday clients.

Diners club was founded by Ralph Schneider and Frank X. McNamara in 1950, and instead of using many cards people where allowed to use one card. This card had to be paid in full at the end of each month which is differnt from the modern credit card.

The next card to come along was Carte Blanche and then American Express in 1958. American Express led to the creation of a global credit card system. The Visa system also came into existence in 1958 via Bank of Americas BankAmericard. MasterCard came into the world in 1966 when it was first known as MasterCharge.

With development of high security and safety in banking system in the United States of America, the credit card market rose. Travellers gained benefits of being able to use credit cards safely and easily all over the world.

In 1966, the first credit card was released in the UK. The credit card system was not accepted by other countries. Reasons cited for not wanting to use credit cards included bank reliability or a preference to use cash.

Embedded microchips are a recent technological advance that has helped reduce credit card fraud. Affinity cards that are connected to certain companies or groups are another new innovation.

The factors that influence higher credit are amount of money you make and your amount of credit card expenditures.

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