The history of credit card
Background
There are two key antecedents of the credit card as we know it today. In the first term, the novel “Looking Backward” (1888), written by Edward Bellamy in the United States, which described twenty-first century society as a self-sufficient community in which money does not exist.
In the interview, provides centralized management of all citizens is necessary, but in turn provides, in order to address the marketing of daily commodities, a credential that is used for that purpose in the various businesses.
The other major precedent is the signature “Provident Clothing and Supply Company, founded by one Joshua Kelly Waddilove on late nineteenth century. The company provided funding above the baseline of the inhabitants of Bradford, England, through documents that were accepted in local shops as part payment.
The invention takes shape
One must go back to 1970 to experience the birth of the big bang, with its current pinnacle of credit cards, driven by growth in all major brands, which have become mega international companies with a presence throughout the globe.
But it is possible to trace and, in 1914, the origin of the credit card in a manner somewhat similar to today. In that year when the firm U.S. General Petroleum launches a plastic designed to provide credit to their staff and key customers. A few years later, this system is taken up by other oil companies and shops in the country, quickly becoming popular.
Although so far the credit card was used only in the north country, already had some characteristics similar to today, and was taking a surprising boom, expanding its use to tourism and gastronomy.
The moment of greatest explosion of these cards was first before the second world war, to retract a bit during it. On the 50 ‘begins to be important the issuing of plastic separating the trade that brings the possibility of funding. Born then the credit card with all conditions similar to those that are managed today.
From there, he begins a dizzying career seared by the birth of large firms, international expansion of product and technological advances at the service of plastic money in the world and in all areas.