Something New by Mistake

How many people have invented something to meet his needs. One such invention is the credit card, which was used 100 years ago.

Credit cards are now an essential component of everyday shopping and transactions in personal and family life around the world. With a credit card in your wallet or pocket, you can easily book hotel room and plane tickets, restaurant meals and hospital treatment and various shopping bills not only in the country but also abroad. There is no such thing as a credit card to avoid the risk of carrying cash. If necessary, a certain amount of loan can be taken. There is no need to pay any interest if you pay the expenses on time. At the same time, there are various discounts and benefits as opposed to using credit cards. As a result, people are increasingly using credit cards.

The history of credit cards

The opportunity to make comfortable purchases and transactions through a plastic card did not suddenly come in front of people. Behind this is a long-held desire to find a viable alternative to cash transactions. 134 years ago today, in 18, the famous novelist Edward Ballamy made the credit card issue for the first time in his fictional novel Looking Backward , 11 times. However, the first initiative was seen a century ago in 1920, which took a few more decades to see the full light. Let's hear that amazing story, that history:

Frank McNamara, a businessman from the United States, went to a restaurant in New York in 1949 for dinner. But while paying the bill after the meal, the gentleman noticed that he had not brought the wallet or money bag by mistake. He then signed a contract with the restaurant promising to pay the food bill later. However, there are rumors that McNamara asked his wife to come to the restaurant with some cash.

From that embarrassing experience, McNamara kept thinking about how to pay the bill without cash. Yes, soon an idea came to his mind. That is, the work can be done through the card. The following year, in 1950, McNamara, along with another man named Ralph Schneider, launched The Diners Club, the first credit card for American consumers. The main motto of the company was 'sign the contract now, pay the bill later'. In light of that, McNamara signed deals with 26 restaurants in New York City. A total of 200 friends and acquaintances became members of the Diners Club. The members would then eat at the contracted restaurants first and then pay the bill.

The Diners Club paid a membership fee of three dollars a year and charged the restaurant a fee of 6 percent for each bill. It gained popularity very quickly. In the first year alone, its membership exceeded 20,000. By 1953, it had become well-known in the international arena. As a result, branches were opened in Canada, Cuba and France.

Around the same time, Alfred Bloomingdale, the grandson of the founder of the Bloomingdale department store in the United States, started a credit card business called 'Sign and Dine' in Los Angeles, according to a New York Times report.

Meanwhile, Alfred Bloomingdale, through a friend, learned of the launch of a company called The Diners Club in New York . He then had regular meetings with the founders of the Diners Club, Frank McNamara and Snyder. As a result of these meetings, Diners Club and Sign & Dine merged to form a new company.

Alfred Bloomingdale then predicted, 'One day credit cards will become more popular than cash transactions. The day will come when plastic cards will make cash transactions obsolete. '

However, three decades before The Diners Club and Sign & Dine began their journey, in 1920, department stores and oil companies in the United States introduced a type of credit card called 'Curtis Card' for customers. However, in 1958 the Bank of America introduced credit cards. Then the business and use of credit cards spread from country to country all over the world, one by one, beyond the United States.

Needless to say, Alfred Bloomingdale, Frank McNamara and Schneider were far ahead of their time in thinking. Now credit card transactions are going on all over the world. A survey by the US Federal Reserve Bank of Boston a few years ago found that 72 percent of consumers in the country make credit card purchases or transactions. And according to ABC News, 75 percent of Americans use at least one credit card. Coronavirus is thought to have multiplied the speed of credit card use.

Now we can't think a day without use of a credit card.. Credit card makes our life so simple and easy.. Thank you all for reading...