How credit cards started

n the beginning, credit cards were just charge accounts, offered by individual stores and only usable at those stores. The first credit card that could be used at multiple locations was offered by The Diner’s Club in 1950.
Diners Club issued that first card to only two hundred customers and it could only be used at twenty seven restaurants in New York City.
American Express started off as a shipping company in 1850, shipping products across the United States and capitalizing on the limited reach and slow speed of the United States Postal Service. Their main customers were banks and they shipped various financial instruments like stock certificates and other notes. They began selling money orders and traveler’s checks in 1882 and issued its first credit card in 1958.