Credit cards have nowadays insinuated into every corner of our lives, and it is rare that an adult these days not to perform at least one card. Besides being used in the traditional way of procuring goods or services in person, is also used now online, by telephone, by writing checks, and even to withdraw cash from ATMs. People use them in all sorts of ways - as a means of loans, as a convenient payment method, and even earn money through payment or reimbursement programs.
Despite its ubiquity in modern life, credit cards have a fairly short history, with the first generals of the credit card being introduced less than 50 years purpose. In this article, we will discuss the origins ofcredit cards, and then how they have developed over the years with the emphasis on the UK market.
The first credit card was launched by Diners Club in 1951 and was limited to use in twenty seven New York restaurants. It was a great success initially, with only 200 cards being issued. The real story ofcredit cards began in 1958 with the introduction of two new major products. The first was the credit card from American Express, which had more than one million subscribers within five years of being launched.
The other innovation was the first example of what we now recognize as a credit card: Americard Bank, a general purpose card developed by Joseph Williams while working at Bank of America. Over time, this card is to develop in the Visa company we know today. Eight years after the introduction of this card, fourteen U.S. banks formed an alliance to launch a rival to the Bank Americard named Interlink, which was to become the MasterCard payment processor in 1979.
The first card in the UK general was launched by Barclays Bank in 1967, Barclaycard and remains one of the most popular and widespread card Forty years later. In 1972, four other UK banks joined together to launch the card access in competition with Barclays, and for the next decade or so, this remained the status quo.
It was during the 1980s that the credit card industry began consolidating behind the two large processors that had become their present form by this time, Visa and Mastercard. Banks dropped their own processing facilities, and began to issue cards that could be used at any outlet that supports these two major payment processors. It was this movement that led to the great expansion in the use of the card, which now could easily be used almost anywhere in the world.
The next major change to the industry was the revolution of Internet technology, allowing cards online only as eggs in the UK to offer attractive benefits to the cardholder at low cost to issuers. Competition among lenders rapidly heated, and offers features such as balance transfer began to appear.
Balance transfer offers card members allowed to move their debt from card to card and avoid paying interest on almost indefinitely, or so it seemed. Unfortunately, this ruse of 'surf credit card' could not last, because it was costing the industry billions of credit each year, and so a balance transfer fee was imposed, which made it much less attractive to holders of cards.
The last major change in the field of credit cards has been the introduction of chip and PIN technology that has substantially reduced card fraud by requiring payments to be passed through to enter a code number instead of relying within a firm. The technology began to be deployed in the UK in 2004, and is now fully in use throughout the country.
What's next for credit cards? Only issuers know, but with record levels of debt many people are reluctant to apply for new cards, so you're likely to see the most attractive features that are available to new applicants for loans that companies compete for ever - retail business.
