Credit cards are something that almost every person has in the world today. If you look at the rich and famous you might think that they have so much money they probably walk into a shop and buy whatever they want with a suitcase full of money. This is not the case though as many of these guys use credit cards to do their shopping and pay the bills at the end of the month, pretty much like everyone else in the world. The idea of credit dates back to many years ago and it’s fascinating to see how it has grown from 3000BC to 2012.
The first use of credit was in the year 3000BC, when there was no such thing as gold, platinum or black credit cards. In the 1300s the bill of exchange was introduced where people could settle their debt with 1/3 cash and 2/3 bill of exchange. The bill of exchange was a document that specified an amount of money that would be paid by a certain time. Bill of exchange is in many ways similar to a cheque that is more commonly used nowadays. It worked with the same three person process where you give somebody a cheque and that person must go cash it themselves at the bank.
Christopher Thornton was the first person to publicly advertise credit. He was selling furniture and had an option for people to pay him off weekly. This of course was seen as a good idea by many and the whole credit idea took off. In the 1800’s people discovered a way to keep track of what people bought on credit. Although not a very efficient option, people called Tallymen used to keep a tally of what people bought by writing information on wooden sticks. In 1890 there was a buzz in Europe about credit cards.
1946 was the year that the 1st bank card was introduced. John Biggins was a Brooklyn banker that introduced this revolutionary piece of plastic to the world and now 66 years later it is probably one of the most important things in everybody’s life. The first credit card was later introduced in 1951 by the Diners Club. This card only gave users a list of 27 restaurants to purchase from. There were only 200 people to get this card initially but now there are probably millions of people using it.
In today’s day and age there are plenty of different credit cards available to those heavy, buy now pay later spenders. Visa, Maestro, RCS and more all have their own line of credit cards. They have a range of different colours based on how much your monthly salary is. Of course that’s why you see celebrities walking around with a black card which is a top of the line credit card. This credit card has no limit hence the fact you see them buying cars and expensive houses like its pocket change they are using. For some of us this will be merely a dream to one day be able to swipe our credit cards like there is no tomorrow.
Darren Vrede is an experienced content writer who enjoys to write tutorials on metatrader 4 that focuses on online forex trading.
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