CARD° NOUN (BUSINESS WORLD)

A thin rectangular piece of semi-rigid plastic carrying the membership details of the owner and used to obtain credit, guarantee cheques, activate cash dispensers, etc. Etymology: Although made of plastic, this kind of card closely resembles in size, shape, and purpose a business or membership card (itself named after the material from which it was traditionally made); in the electronic age, size, shape, and recorded data (usually on a magnetic strip) are the important characteristics, for they determine whether or not the card may be used in the appropriate machinery. History and Usage: In the UK, the stiff plastic card was first widely used by banks as a method of guaranteeing payment on cheques from the late sixties onwards; this kind of card was generally known as a cheque card. The huge increase in consumer credit facilities which took place in the US during the sixties and in the UK during the seventies meant that the embossed credit card or charge card became very common. By the eighties it was not unusual for an individual cardmember to carry a whole range of cards for different purposes, including the types mentioned above and the store option card (or simply option card) giving interest-free credit for a limited period on goods from a specified store. Some people even considered that plastic had taken over from money in the US and the UK. This view was reinforced by the introduction in 1982 of a plastic card to replace coins in public telephone boxes (see phonecard), the increasing popularity of the cash dispenser (which allows people to use a cash card as a means of obtaining cash, discovering their bank balance, etc.), and the introduction of the debit card (which uses electronic point-of-sale equipment to debit the cost of goods direct from the customer's bank account, without the intervention of cheques or credit facilities). Card technology became a growth area during the eighties with the need to increase card-users' protection against theft and misuse; the chip card, a card which incorporates a microchip to store information about the transactions for which it is used, was one of the proposed solutions to this problem. With the proliferation of different kinds of cards, machinery was needed which could 'read' the information stored on the magnetic strip quickly and efficiently; by the end of the eighties, the card-swipe, a reader similar to an electronic eye, across or through which the card is 'wiped' rapidly, was widely used for this purpose. The term (credit-)card (short for (credit-)card-sized) began to occur in attributive position in the mid eighties to describe the thing named by the following noun as being the same size as, or in some other way similar to, a card (see the last quotation below). I reported the missing credit cards...but I did not call my bank that evening, trusting that nobody could use that card without the PIN code. New York Times 21 Nov. 1989, section A, p. 24 Forstmann Little would receive senior debt rather than junior debt--roughly the difference between an American Express card and an IOU. Bryan Burrough & John Helyar Barbarians at the Gate (1990), p. 292 UK Banks and building societies...are vigorously promoting the advantages of the new style three-in-one card covering cheque guarantee, cashpoint and debit card facilities. Observer 22 Apr. 1990, p. 35 The British Heart Foundation has leaflets on angina and other heart conditions as well as credit card guides to pacemaker centres. Daily Telegraph 26 June 1990, p. 13 See also affinity card, gold card, and switch