Credit cards have a longstanding and unique history in America. Starting in the 1920’s, with the increase of automobile ownership, credit cards gained footing. Originally, the credit card was designed specifically to sell fuel to auto owners, the number of which was growing exponentially. However, the idea of a credit card dates back to 1887 and Edward Bellamy’s book Looking Backward. In the utopian novel, Bellamy used the term “credit card” eleven times to describe a card used for purchases. In 1921, Western Union began issuing cards to their frequent customers. Many of the cards were issued on paper card stock, and the issue of counterfeit cards soon arose. By 1938, many companies began accepting one another’s credit cards.

The early predecessor to the modern-day credit card was the Charga-Plate, used in the 1930’s and 40’s. It was similar in size and shape to a military dog tag and was embossed with the owner’s name, city and state, and held a small slip of paper with the owner’s signature on it. When a purchase was made, the card was laid on an imprinter and in inked ribbon was pressed on top of it. The plates were originally issued by stores to their frequent customers, and in some cases were kept on file in the store and simply brought out when the regular customer wished to make a purchase. In essence, this expedited the old way of keeping a tab of purchases. The closer ancestor to the modern day card, the card that eventually became Visa, was created in 1958 by Bank of America, with others such as MasterCard emerging in the 1960’s. Likewise, American Express is credited with creating a worldwide credit card system in 1958.

Today credit cards are much more secure and in fact the security of a card is a major selling factor, as well as how widely accepted the card is. While most westernized nations across the world accept credit cards, there are regional cards that are more widely used, such as the Eurocard in parts of Europe.