An industry was born, Diners Club.

             As a matter of fact, the period right before the First World War, was the first year for a new industry, the credit card industry. Those first credit cards were not really credit cards as they are today because they served only for limited needs. They could be used only on a very low level. "The use of credit cards by retailers began in 1914" (Lewis, 1990). Since that date there was an inconceivable growth of credit card production. Prior to World War I, few hotels, oil companies and department stores issued credit cards. Then in 1931 the airline companies introduced the credit cards in their business (Lewis, 1990). The evolution and the expansion of the card went lide the speed of light. The most important step was the introduction of the credit card to the Internet in the 90"s. Today, Web servers enable payments by credit card. A credit card transaction over the Internet is one of the most common types of payment. If a merchant has an account with a merchant bank that offers Internet credit card processing, he would be able to accept credit card payment over the Internet (http://search.netscape.com). "There was an increase of $78 billion over 1994, in just one short year. We"ve been tracking it since 1980, and we"ve never seen that kind of increase before." (Glenn, 1984, pp.857-68).

             What are the reasons that explain the fast increase of the use of the credit cards? As one reason that might explain the phenomenon, some people may think that carrying a credit card is much easier than having cash or a checkbook in their wallets or purses. There is no doubt that the "plastic money" doesn"t bother in a wallet or a purse because of its tiny size.

             Another reason that may explain the credit card fever is that it allows its holders to spend the money they haven"t got yet. Actually, it looks like free money, although it really isn"t. That is the case of the college students who have credit cards and whose parents will pay the debt their child has created.