Credit Card History
Mastercards have nowadays insinuated themselves into all corners of our lives, and it is rare for an adult nowadays to not carry 1 card. As well as being utilized in the standard manner to buy goods or services in person, they are also now used online, over the telephone, for writing checks, and even for withdrawing cash from cash machines. People use them in all sorts of strategies - as a means of borrowing, as a convenient payment technique, and even for earning money through cashback or reward schemes.
Despite their ubiquity in modern life, credit cards have a fairly short history, with the first general purpose card being introduced less than fifty years back. In this article we will look at the origins of mastercards, and then at how they've developed over the years with the stress on the united kingdom market.
The first credit card was launched by Diners Club in 1951, and was limited to be employed in twenty 7 New York eateries. It wasn't a giant success at first, with only 200 cards being issued. The real story of credit cards started in 1958 with the introduction of two major new products. The first was the North American Express charge card, which boasted over a million users inside five years of it being launched.
The other innovation was the 1st example of what we now recognize as a Mastercard : the Bank Americard, a general purpose card developed by Joseph Williams while working at the bank of america. Over time, this card was to develop into the Visa company that we know today. Eight years after the introduction of this card, 14 U.S. Banks formed an alliance to launch a rival to the Bank Americard, named Interlink, which was to evolve into the Mastercard payment processor by 1979.
The first UK general card was launched by Barclays Bank in 1967, and their Barclaycard is still one of the most popular and widespread cards 40 years after. In 1972, four other UK banks joined forces to launch the Access card competing against Barclays, and for the next decade or so this stayed the status quo.
It was in the 1980s that the card industry commenced consolidating behind the two enormous processors that had evolved into their present form by this time, Visa and credit card. Banks dropped their own processing facilities, and began to issue cards that might be used at any outlet that supported these two main payment processors. It was this move that led straight to the great expansion in card use, as they could now be simply used virtually anywhere in the world.
The subsequent major change to the industry was the revolutionizing technology of the internet, allowing solely online cards such as Egg in the United Kingdom to supply engaging benefits to the cardholder at reduced cost to the issuers. Competition between banks quickly heated up, and features like balance transfer offers began to appear.
Balance transfer deals allowed cardholders to move their debt from card to card and avoid having to pay any interest on it almost indefinitely, or so it appeared. Sadly, this device of 'credit card surfing' couldn't last as it was costing the credit industry billions each year, and so a balance transfer fee was imposed which made it a lot less attractive to cardholders.
The last major change in the credit card industry has been the introduction of Chip and PIN technology that has cut card fraud significantly by requiring payments to be licensed thru entering a code number instead of relying on a signature. The technology began to be rolled out in the UK in 2004, and is now fully in use across the land.
What's next for credit cards? Only the issuers know, but with record levels of debt many people are reluctant to sign up for new cards, and so we are certain to see more engaging features starting to become available to new candidates as credit companies compete for the shrinking quantity of business available.
Despite their ubiquity in modern life, credit cards have a fairly short history, with the first general purpose card being introduced less than fifty years back. In this article we will look at the origins of mastercards, and then at how they've developed over the years with the stress on the united kingdom market.
The first credit card was launched by Diners Club in 1951, and was limited to be employed in twenty 7 New York eateries. It wasn't a giant success at first, with only 200 cards being issued. The real story of credit cards started in 1958 with the introduction of two major new products. The first was the North American Express charge card, which boasted over a million users inside five years of it being launched.
The other innovation was the 1st example of what we now recognize as a Mastercard : the Bank Americard, a general purpose card developed by Joseph Williams while working at the bank of america. Over time, this card was to develop into the Visa company that we know today. Eight years after the introduction of this card, 14 U.S. Banks formed an alliance to launch a rival to the Bank Americard, named Interlink, which was to evolve into the Mastercard payment processor by 1979.
The first UK general card was launched by Barclays Bank in 1967, and their Barclaycard is still one of the most popular and widespread cards 40 years after. In 1972, four other UK banks joined forces to launch the Access card competing against Barclays, and for the next decade or so this stayed the status quo.
It was in the 1980s that the card industry commenced consolidating behind the two enormous processors that had evolved into their present form by this time, Visa and credit card. Banks dropped their own processing facilities, and began to issue cards that might be used at any outlet that supported these two main payment processors. It was this move that led straight to the great expansion in card use, as they could now be simply used virtually anywhere in the world.
The subsequent major change to the industry was the revolutionizing technology of the internet, allowing solely online cards such as Egg in the United Kingdom to supply engaging benefits to the cardholder at reduced cost to the issuers. Competition between banks quickly heated up, and features like balance transfer offers began to appear.
Balance transfer deals allowed cardholders to move their debt from card to card and avoid having to pay any interest on it almost indefinitely, or so it appeared. Sadly, this device of 'credit card surfing' couldn't last as it was costing the credit industry billions each year, and so a balance transfer fee was imposed which made it a lot less attractive to cardholders.
The last major change in the credit card industry has been the introduction of Chip and PIN technology that has cut card fraud significantly by requiring payments to be licensed thru entering a code number instead of relying on a signature. The technology began to be rolled out in the UK in 2004, and is now fully in use across the land.
What's next for credit cards? Only the issuers know, but with record levels of debt many people are reluctant to sign up for new cards, and so we are certain to see more engaging features starting to become available to new candidates as credit companies compete for the shrinking quantity of business available.
