The Credit Card is 40 Years Old Today.

[BurtWorm]

In England anyway. Does anyone know offhand when the first credit cards appeared in the US?


http://money.guardian.co.uk/creditanddebt/creditcards/story/0,,1808824,00.html?gusrc=rss

Money > Credit and debt > More on credit cards

Plastic fantastic

It was 40 years ago today that Barclaycard taught shoppers how to pay, writes Sandra Haurant

Thursday June 29, 2006

It is 1966, England is poised to win the World Cup, the Beatles are at number one and no one in the country has a great big credit card bill to pay off.

How things change. England may still be in with a chance of a trophy, but the Beatles are history and the UK has a combined credit card balance of more than £32bn.

Today marks the 40th birthday of the credit card. The first card provider, Barclays, sent the cards to 1 million handpicked customers with a pamphlet explaining what they could do with the small rectangles of plastic they had received. It could be argued that the bank courted controversy from the outset by sending the cards out unsolicited.

Barclays also took out a record eight pages of advertising in the Daily Mail to lure more customers, and the way British consumers spent money changed for good:

· The first cardholders and had a credit limit of £100, which they could spend with 30,000 retailers across the UK. The limit may sound small, but is roughly equivalent to the average credit limit for a new customer today. In 1966, however, customers had to repay their balance at the end of each month.

...

[Kutjara]

1. I don't know when plastic credit cards first appeared...

...in the US, but I remember when I was cleaning out my mother's house after her death, I found all these small metal 'charge plates' from the late 50s/early 60s. These were mostly store and gas station 'cards,' seemed to be made of tin and were a bit larger than a military 'dogtag'. I don't know what the credit terms were back then, but I suspect users had to pay their accounts off monthly as well.

[Warpy]

7. Retail stores had "charge plates" and I think those

started to appear in the 1920s. I remember Diner's Club cards in the 50s, gas and long distance cards in the early 60s. You were allowed to keep a balance, interest was compounded, but there weren't late fees, over the line fees, and all the other junk fees that credit cards started charging in the early 90s.

When Master Card first came out they mailed the suckers, pre approved, to college students. A lot of people I knew back then threw them into the trash. That 18.9% interest rate looked like loan sharking to an impoverished college student. It was better to be poor.

I got a card in the late 80s when I was traveling around, preparing to leave Boston. I got rid of it in 1991 when those junk fees and demands for minimum payments showed up. It smelled like a developing scam to me, and I was right.

[TacticalPeek]

2. 1958 - for the general purpose card

"When Bank of America launched the nation's first general-purpose credit card in 1958, it simply dropped 60,000 of them in a mass mailing to residents in Fresno, California. The bank hoped to attract customers with a new type of "revolving" credit line, which could be used for purchases everywhere and paid off over time. The idea was to tap into the pent-up consumer demands of World War II baby boomers."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/credit/more/rise.html

[MADem]

3. Diner's Club (only geezers really remember that one) beats them

http://www.dinersclubnewsroom.com/anniversary.cfm

The world changed 55 years ago when Frank McNamara created the first multi-use charge card—the Diners Club Card. In 1950, a world without cash was inconceivable. Today, an economic universe without plastic is just as inconceivable. From New York to Bangkok, for business or leisure, the phrase "charge it" is now a universal occurrence, playing a key role in how consumers pay for goods and services.

The legendary story of how it all started:

In 1949, Frank McNamara schedules a business meal at a New York restaurant called Major’s Cabin Grill. Prior to dinner, he changes suits. After dinner, the waiter presents the bill. Frank reaches for his wallet . . . and realizes that he has left it in his other suit. McNamara finesses the situation, but that night he has a thought, "Why should people be limited to spending what they are carrying in cash, instead of being able to spend what they can afford?" In February 1950, McNamara and his partner, Ralph Schneider, return to Major’s Cabin Grill and order dinner. When the bill came, McNamara presents a small, cardboard card—a Diners Club Card—and signs for the purchase. In the credit card industry, this event is still known as the First Supper.

People soon grasped the "charge it" concept and began using the Diners Club Card. Merchants realized it was good business to offer people an alternative form of payment. The concept caught fire. By 1952, the Card was accepted at thousands of merchants who appreciated the buying power of the individuals who carried and used the new payment tool.

The Diners Club Card soon became a cultural icon. Hollywood cashed in on the charge craze with the 1962 release of The Man From The Diners Club, starring Danny Kaye and Telly Savales. The Ideal Toy Corporation followed suit with a board game—the Diners Club game. The idea quickly expanded outside the United States. Diners Club became the first international charge card in 1952 with franchises in Canada, France and Cuba.....

[MadHound]

5. And here we are, fifty five years later

With the average card holder burdened with over $8000.00 in credit card debt, families using their homes as ATMs, bankruptcy up, foreclosures up, and all of our data being "lost" or stolen, to be used against us.

And people wonder why I'll never, ever get one of those damn pieces of plastic.

[deaniac21]

6. As Nick Burns would say, "The card is stupid not the people,

right!"....

[MadHound]

8. Sure, I agree, people are responsible for their own decisions

However CC companies are notorious for swamping the most foolish and gullible with CC offers. Witness the annual blitz at college campuses. In addition, over the past twenty five years there has been a concerted push to make CCs the norm, not the exception. Yes, people are responsible for their own actions, but in a way I view it as the pusher continuing to enable the addict. One should be treated for their addiction, the other should be punished for taking advantage of the weak and vunerable.

[deaniac21]

9. I thought college students were the cream of the nations youth?

[MadHound]

10. Hardly, now they are becoming more and more of a drag

On the nation's economy. Coming out of school with five figure school loan debt., four or five figure CC debt. etc. etc. It is getting to the point where their accumulated debt is affecting their future purchasing power, especially for big ticket items like houses.

And "cream" is a pretty relative word, given the fact now that most people can't get a halfway decent paying job without a college degree. In many ways, college is becoming more and more like vocational schools everyday.

[The2ndWheel]

4. And the Interstate Highway System is 50 years old today

A good half century. As a result, we're all just expendable car dependent debt ridden credit consumers. Good times.