But, "They have been mailed off to unemployables, drunks, narcotics addicts and to compulsive debtors, a process President Johnson's Special Assistant Betty Furness found very like 'giving sugar to diabetics'." These mass mailings were known as "drops" in banking terminology, and were outlawed in 1970 due to the financial chaos they caused, but not before 100 million credit cards had been dropped into the U.S. In 1966, the ancestor of MasterCard was born when a group of banks established Master Charge to compete with BankAmericard it received a significant boost when Citibank merged its proprietary Everything Card (launched in 1967) into Master Charge in 1969.Įarly credit cards in the U.S., of which BankAmericard was the most prominent example, were mass produced and mass mailed unsolicited to bank customers who were thought to be good credit risks. Bank Americard became the first successful recognizably modern credit card (although it underwent a troubled gestation during which its creator resigned), and with its overseas affiliates, eventually evolved into the Visa system. In September 1958, Bank of America launched the Bank Americard in Fresno, California. A dozen experiments by small American banks had been attempted (and had failed). However, until 1958, no one had been able to create a working revolving credit financial instrument issued by a third-party bank that was generally accepted by a large number of merchants (as opposed to merchant-issued revolving cards accepted by only a few merchants).
That was followed by Carte Blanche and in 1958 by American Express which created a worldwide credit card network (although these were initially charge cards that acquired credit card features after BankAmericard demonstrated the feasibility of the concept). The Diners Club, which was created partially through a merger with Dine and Sign, produced the first "general purpose" charge card, and required the entire bill to be paid with each statement.
The concept of customers paying different merchants using the same card was expanded in 1950 by Ralph Schneider and Frank McNamara, founders of Diners Club, to consolidate multiple cards.
In October 1948, the Air Travel Card became the first inter-nationally valid charge card within all members of the International Air Transport Association. The airlines had also started offering installment plans to lure new travelers into the air. By 1941 about half of the airlines' revenues came through the Air Travel Card agreement. By the 1940s, all of the major domestic airlines offered Air Travel Cards that could be used on 17 different airlines. With an Air Travel Card, passengers could "buy now, and pay later" for a ticket against their credit and receive a fifteen percent discount at any of the accepting airlines. This is the reason the modern UATP cards still start with the number 1. In 1934, American Airlines and the Air Transport Association simplified the process even more with the advent of the Air Travel Card.They created a numbering scheme that identified the issuer of card as well as the customer account. Charga-Plates speeded back-office bookkeeping that was done manually in paper ledgers in each store, before computers. When an authorized user made a purchase, a clerk retrieved the plate from the store's files and then processed the purchase. In some cases, the plates were kept in the issuing store rather than held by customers. Charga-Plates were issued by large-scale merchants to their regular customers, much like department store credit cards of today. Charga-Plate was a trademark of Farrington Manufacturing Co. The record of the transaction included an impression of the embossed information, made by the imprinter pressing an inked ribbon against the charge slip. In recording a purchase, the plate was laid into a recess in the imprinter, with a paper "charge slip" positioned on top of it. It held a small paper card for a signature. It was embossed with the customer's name, city and state. It was a 2½ in × 1¼ in rectangle of sheet metal related to Addressograph and military dog tag systems. The Charga-Plate, developed in 1928, was an early predecessor to the credit card and used in the U.S. Some charge cards were printed on paper card stock, but were easily counterfeited.
Western Union had begun issuing charge cards to its frequent customers in 1921. In 1938 several companies started to accept each other's cards. It was first used in the 1920s, in the United States, specifically to sell fuel to a growing number of automobile owners. The modern credit card was the successor of a variety of merchant credit schemes. Bellamy used the term credit card eleven times in this novel, although this referred to a card for spending a citizen's dividend rather than borrowing. The concept of using a card for purchases was described in 1887 by Edward Bellamy in his utopian novel Looking Backward.
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