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The first credit card
The Diners Club card
The Diners Club card let members charge meals at restaurants and pay the bill later. It is widely described as the first general-purpose charge card.
Diners Club was founded in New York by Frank McNamara, Ralph Schneider and associates, and its first cards were reportedly issued in 1950 to a few hundred members for use at a small number of restaurants. The early cards were made of cardboard, and plastic versions came later.
It is usually called a charge card because the full balance was due each month, unlike a revolving credit card that lets the user carry a balance with interest. Earlier forms of store-specific credit, such as metal charge plates and cards used at single retailers or oil companies, existed before 1950, so the claim is that Diners Club was the first widely used general-purpose card accepted at multiple businesses.
The company earned money from fees charged to merchants and from membership fees. Later systems from banks, such as BankAmericard in 1958, introduced revolving credit on a mass scale and are ancestors of today's Visa network. The anecdote about the forgotten wallet comes from the founders' own telling, and historians treat it with caution.
By the late twentieth century, plastic payment cards were used worldwide, which makes the 1950 start a useful milestone in the history of everyday spending.