What Year Was The Visa Credit Card Created?

BankAmericard changed to Visa in 1975. While theparticularly the fact that the cardholder agreement held
name was changed, the card itself had been aroundcustomers liable for any and all charges, even those
since the 1960s, created by Bank of America in 1958,made in error or by fraud. The bank "officially" only lost
when they sent out 60,000 unsolicited credit cards.$8.8 million on the BankAmericard launch, but after all
It turns out that sending out all those unsolicited creditthe damage control, advertising, and overhead was
cards was not a good move. Things went well at first,incorporated, the loss was really more like $20 million,
but later Bank of America became quite antsy whenand that was in 1959, when $20 million was quite a
they found out that another bank was going to mailmore significant sum than it is now.
out cards in San Francisco. So they dropped manyIn 1970, the issuing banks of the BankAmericard took
more cards: 2,000,000 altogether by October 1959.over the program from Bank of America and created
BankAmericard was accepted by some 20,000National BankAmericard Inc. to take charge of
merchants, but there were many hitches. The bankdeveloping the Bank Americard system within the
basically placed too much trust in the plastic carryingUnited States. In 1974 IBANCO, a multinational concern,
consumers to actually pay their bills. By the end ofwas created to manage the international
1959, 22% of BankAmericard accounts wereBankAmericard program. In 1975, BankAmericard,
delinquent, versus an expected default rate of 4%.Chargex, Barclaycard, Carte Bleue, and any other
Police departments were the bewildered enforcers oflicensees of Bank America united under the brand
a brand new crime called credit card fraud.Visa. National BankAmericard Inc. became Visa USA,
Politicians, journalists, and consumers created quite aand IBANCO became Visa International.
disturbance about Bank of America's new credit card,