First Credit Card Introduced
Diners Club issued the first general purpose credit card, accepted at 27 restaurants
February 08, 1950
A Forgotten Wallet, a Big Idea
The modern credit card has an origin story that may be partly legend. In 1949, a businessman named Frank McNamara found himself at a New York restaurant without enough cash to pay the bill. Embarrassed, he resolved to create a system that would let diners charge meals to an account and pay later. The following year, McNamara and his partner Ralph Schneider launched the Diners Club card, widely regarded as the first modern charge card. It was made of cardboard, accepted at 27 New York restaurants, and had about 200 members by the end of its first year.
From Charge Cards to Credit Cards
The Diners Club card required users to pay their full balance each month — it was a charge card, not a true credit card. The concept of revolving credit, where users could carry a balance and pay interest, came later. In 1958, Bank of America launched the BankAmericard in California, offering revolving credit for the first time on a wide scale. The card was eventually licensed to banks across the country and internationally, eventually evolving into Visa. Around the same time, a group of banks launched a competing network that would become Mastercard.
Transforming How We Spend
Credit cards fundamentally changed consumer behavior and the economy. They made it easier to spend money you hadn't yet earned, fueling consumer spending but also personal debt. The credit card industry became enormously profitable, generating billions in interest and fees. Today billions of transactions are made by credit card each year, and the technology has evolved from cardboard to plastic to contactless chips and digital wallets. The age calculator can help you figure out exactly how old this revolution in spending really is.