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History Of Modern Day Credit Cards

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The History of Modern Day Credit Cards Although credit cards were fist introduced in the early 1900 's, they have continued to evolve and shape the way we as a society buy and pay for items. The introduction of the credit card has completely changed the way we make purchases, large and small. Making a large purchase used to mean that the consumer had to save money and pay for the entire transaction at once, but we can now purchase these items with a credit card. Buying items with a credit card means the merchant we buy from gets payment in full immediately, but the buyer can make monthly payments to the credit card company to gradually pay for the purchase. Credit cards had a humble beginning dating back to the 1900 's. The cards were first used by banks and department stores, so that customers could charge their purchases at these locations. The drawback, however, was that the customers could only use the cards at the issuing location and they could not be used elsewhere. Credit cards were also implemented by oil companies for their employees. In his article published for the Philadelphia Federal Reserve, Stan Sienkiewicz states that “such cards were accepted only at the business that issued the card and in limited locations. While modern credit cards are mainly used for convenience, these predecessor cards were developed as a means of creating customer loyalty and improving customer service.” According to MasterCard 's article, “Banker John Biggins introduced the

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