Diners Club introduced the first modern credit card in 1950 strictly because a businessman named Frank McNamara famously forgot his wallet during a dinner at a New York restaurant.

A closer look

Diners Club introduced the first modern credit card in 1950 strictly because a businessman named Frank McNamara famously forgot his wallet during a dinner at a New York restaurant. Horrified by the sheer embarrassment of having his wife pay the tab, he invented a small cardboard charge card that would allow wealthy patrons to eat now and settle their bill at the end of the month. What started as an exclusive convenience for businessmen who couldn't be bothered to carry cash rapidly mutated into a predatory trillion-dollar industry that thrives on keeping the working class trapped in a perpetual cycle of minimum payments and exorbitant interest rates. Thanks to one guy's fragile ego in a mid-century steakhouse, you now get bombarded with daily mailers offering a piece of plastic with a twenty-five percent APR, giving you the grand privilege of financing a tank of gas over the next three years