![]() Present-day Mastercard competes directly with a similar Visa organization, both of which are run by boards comprised primarily of current and former high-level executives from major corporations. It would be renamed Visa a decade later to acknowledge its growing international presence.Īlso in 1966, a group of California banks formed the Interbank Card Association (ITC), which would soon issue the nation’s second major bank card, Mastercard. In 1966, BankAmericard went national to become the nation’s first licensed general-purpose credit card. Instead of users having to settle their bill in full each month, bank cards would truly become credit cards by offering revolving credit, which allowed cardholders to carry their monthly balance forward for a nominal finance charge.īank of America was first out of the gate in 1958, mailing unsolicited credit cards to select California markets. Major banks would soon launch their own consumer cards, but with a welcome twist. The invention of bank cards and revolving credit 1958: American Express launched its first credit card made of cardboard, followed shortly by the first plastic credit card in 1959.He proposed the idea of a small cardboard card, which members could use like a charge card and pay the bill in full every month. 1950: The Diners Club Card debuted when Frank McNamara forgot his wallet and couldn’t pay for a business dinner.Customer purchases were forwarded to his bank and merchants were reimbursed later in what was known as the “closed-loop system.” 1946: Charge cards were launched by banker John Biggins with the Charg-It card, used in a two-block radius of his bank in New York City.Circa 1800s: Merchants used credit coins and charge plates to extend credit to local farmers and ranchers until they collected profits from harvests.However, the credit card prototype has changed since early human history: While still cumbersome, a slab of clay with seals from both civilizations certainly beat the tons of copper each would have had to melt down to produce the coins of that era. !function(e,i,n,s)(document,0,”infogram-async”) The invention of credit cardsĪccording to historian Jonathan Kenoyer, the concept of using a valueless instrument to represent banking transactions dates back 5,000 years, when the ancient Mesopotamians used clay tablets to conduct trade with the Harappan civilization.
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