April 29, 2010
The Credit Card Act of 2009 was introduced in Congress by people close to the Obama administration because the credit crunch convinced a number of legislators, and their constituents, that the credit card industry needed to be regulated. There were a number of things that were done with the credit card act. read more…
March 25, 2010
Credit cards are an unlikely way of laundering money, but they are growing in importance. This will probably change the way in which credit cards are offered in the future.
A large amount of terrorist financing involves credit cards. This is for two reasons, firstly it is easy to use credit cards to make payments and it is also easy for small and transient criminal gangs, like terrorist cells, to defraud credit cards. read more…
March 16, 2010
When gold cards were first introduced they were invitation only. In exchange for a superior level of service and a prestigious card, card holders would pay higher annual fees and interest rates. The whole point of a gold card was not so much the extra service that was offered but the prestige of being special enough to be invited.
Over time gold cards stopped being so exclusive and started to be offered to the general public, and non-customers could apply for the cards. At first this was still relatively exclusive as there were high income thresholds, but over time competition among card holders and the high demand for the gold cards ensured that the gold card became so common that a majority of the working population found that they could get some card that called itself a gold card. read more…
February 28, 2010
Credit cards did not arise out of a vacuum; there were plenty of predecessors of credit cards and attempts to introduce credit cards.
Before the 1920s there were strong prejudices about getting credit, particularly for consumer goods. Although the use of credit was widely accepted for business purposes, it was regarded with some scorn for consumer purchases. This was a logical reaction to a time of low inflation and static wages. Borrowing to buy depreciating assets was seen as being problematic.
read more…
December 21, 2009
New technology is coming in that will mean that credit cards can be swiped from mobile phones. This is aimed to serve two purposes, firstly to increase credit card security when used over the phone and secondly to allow more retail outlets to accept credit cards as they no longer have to have the equipment and merchant accounts.
Small card readers have been trialed in a number of places, with the biggest trial being Barclaycard trialing the small card readers in the UK market. Although Barclaycard is a second tier credit card provider in the United States it is the UK’s oldest and one of its largest credit card providers. This trial affected a large proportion of British credit card users. read more…