stackyFACTS
Economy

Why credit cards are that exact size

HERE’S THE INTERESTING PART

You carry around perfectly standardized rectangular plastic cards today purely because of 1960s mechanical limitations. Before magnetic stripes, merchants used physical 'knuckle-buster' machines that slid over the card to imprint the raised numbers onto carbon paper slips. The size of the card was standardized to perfectly fit those exact paper receipt formats, and we just never bothered to change it.

From the Stacky collection1 min read
Why credit cards are that exact size
STACKY / Economy
Topics in this factcredit cardbankingdesign
One discovery leads to another.

Keep exploring facts in this topic.

Economy →
STACKY FOR IPHONE

A bigger world.
One discovery
at a time.

Keep discovering with Stacky. Interesting facts in an app that is always within reach.

Download on the App Store
ONE MORE DISCOVERY?

Keep exploring

All in this topic →
The credit-card experiment that dropped 60,000 cards
Economy

The credit-card experiment that dropped 60,000 cards

In 1958, Bank of America basically air-dropped 60,000 live, pre-approved credit cards into Fresno, California, just to see what would happen. The 'Fresno…

Discover more
Swiss bank secrecy began as protection for Jewish assets
Economy

Swiss bank secrecy began as protection for Jewish assets

The world's most famous tax evasion tool actually started as a human rights initiative. The 1934 Swiss Banking Act made it a criminal offense for banks to…

Discover more
Why the dollar's pyramid is unfinished
Economy

Why the dollar's pyramid is unfinished

Conspiracy theorists love to lose their minds over this one, but the truth is aggressively mundane. The Great Seal on the back of the dollar bill features a…

Discover more
Credit cards were entirely conceptualized by a socialist utopian science fiction writer named Edward Bellamy over sixty years before the first physical plastic card was ever issued by a bank.
Economy

Credit cards were entirely conceptualized by a socialist utopian science fiction writer named Edward Bellamy over sixty years before the first physical plastic card was ever issued by a bank.

Credit cards were entirely conceptualized by a socialist utopian science fiction writer named Edward Bellamy over sixty years before the first physical…

Discover more
Swiss bank secrecy is no longer what it used to be
Economy

Swiss bank secrecy is no longer what it used to be

Hollywood villains need to find a new place to stash their illicit funds. The romanticized era of opening a numbered, completely anonymous Swiss bank account…

Discover more
When your bank branch disappears, an app takes its place
Economy

When your bank branch disappears, an app takes its place

Imagine walking down Main Street, where a grand old bank once stood, its stone pillars polished by decades of footsteps. Now, in its place? An empty…

Discover more
StackyMore discoveries in the app
Download on the App Store