Diners Club Card Introduced

Frank McNamara and Ralph Schneider introduce the Diners Club card, the first multi-purpose charge card, initially for restaurant meals. It marked the very beginning of the credit card era.

Significance

Demonstrated the market demand for a convenient, cashless payment method, creating the foundational problem that future electronic processing systems would solve.

Key facts

Date
1950-02-28
Type
invention
Location
New York City, USA