When Edward Bellamy wrote the novel Looking Backward in 1887, he brought up the novel idea that each person would own a credit card that they would use to buy items. This was the first time the term credit card was introduced to the world.

It was however, first used as a way of selling gas to an ever-increasing number of vehicle owners in the United States of America in the 1920s. These cards were initially known as charge cards and in time various companies allowed the use of different cards. In the early days it was quite easy to falsify a credit card, as a number of these cards were printed onto a type of card, and not plastic like they are today.

Another type of credit card that appeared in the 1930s and 1940s is the Charga-plate. The credit card was made of a small piece of metal and had the owners name, city of residence, and the state in which the person resided imprinted into it. The Charga-plates were most of the time kept in a store and only large retailers made use of these, and they only issued them to their everyday clients.

When Ralph Schneider and Frank X. McNamara established Diners Club in 1950, they created a unique card. Unlike other credit cards, the Diners Club card gave people the freedom to use one card instead of multiple cards. Also, while you can pay only a portion of your bill on other credit cards, the Diners Club has to be paid in full each and every month.

Next, Carte Blanche arrived on the scene, closely followed by American Express in 1958. A worldwide credit card system came into being as a result of American Express. In addition, Visa was born in 1958, making its debut as Bank of America’s BankAmericard. In 1966, MasterCharge appeared and its name was later changed to MasterCard.

The US bank system made it possible for people traveling to use credit cards in various places across the country, since they could not access their home banks.

The U.K. was the first country to release the credit card in 1966. Other countries were not still agreed to it, as reliability and security of it was also in question and people also were giving their preferences to cash payments.

Embedded microchips are a recent technological advance that has helped reduce credit card fraud. Affinity cards that are connected to certain companies or groups are another new innovation.

Usually,when your earning increases you are more able to return debt of your credit card which ultimately lead you to increase use of the credit card.