The card itself was made of plastic with embossed account information, similar to the new American Express card. Just as in the case of the charga-plate, the embossed information was transferred to the sales draft using an imprinter, which reduced the potential of copy errors. Early imprinters did not have wheels for transferring the transaction date or amount, which had implications on machine processing that will be discussed in later chapters, so merchants hand-wrote these details on the sales slip, and customers added their signature to authorize the charge.
The BankAmericard also had a formalized authorization process that was based upon the department store systems, but expanded to a multi-merchant environment. Each merchant was assigned a floor limit, over which the merchant was required to call for authorization. at this time it was entirely manual and exceedingly slow.
The accounting side however was computerized from the very beginning, albeit in rather limited way. BofA was actually the first bank in America to use a computer, an IBM 702 installed in 1955, upon which SRI developed a program to automate BofA’s demand deposit accounts.81 To support the BankAmericard, BofA adapted this computer system to maintain cardholder accounts and process sales drafts. In- stead of using magnetic ink as they did with checks, the sales drafts themselves had a punch-card as the bottom layer, which would be punched with the transaction details upon deposit.82
As noted earlier, by the mid 1960s the BankAmericard system had overcome its initial difficulties and was generating increasing profits, but it was still restricted to the state of California. BofA realized that both consumers and commerce were increasingly traveling across state lines, and for their card to be truly useful, it had to be accepted nationwide. American banking regulations at the time prohibited BofA from opening branches in other states, so they decided the best way to expand the system was to license the program to banks in other states. Although BofA could have legally solicited cardholders outside of California, it would have made little sense to do so. There were no centralized credit reporting agencies at this time, so BofA had no way to establish the credit worthiness of prospective cardholders in other states without the help of a local bank. Furthermore, directly signing up merchants would have been extremely difficult, as the merchant would have had to maintain an account with a BofA branch in California. BofA created a subsidiary organization known as BankAmericard Service Corporation (BASC) that was tasked with signing up licensees and administering the entire system. Licensee banks paid BofA $25,000 for the franchise, plus a percentage of their transaction revenues as a royalty. In return, they received the accounting software developed for the BankAmericard system, as well as an invitation to a training ses- National Bankcard Associations 27 sion in San Francisco.99 Much to the dismay of the licensee banks, however, this training session was given by the marketing department, and much of the discus- sion revolved around the marketing aspects of the program. Many of the licensees discovered that they could obtain more helpful and accurate information on how to run their programs by visiting the BankAmericard processing centers, directly observing and talking with their operations people.100 Initially BofA licensed only one bank in any particular geographic area, essen- tially providing it with a local monopoly. These licenses were mostly domestic, but a few were located in other countries; Barclays Bank became the first international li- censee in 1966, and the sole BankAmericard issuer in the UK. These licensee banks typically had correspondent relationships with BofA, and thus were “loyal” or at least tied to BofA in some sense. Although this practice might seem a bit exclusive or restrictive, it was likely a necessary consolation in order to entice banks not only to pay the license fee and royalties, but also to give up their chance to issue a card with their own brand.101 The licensing system also created a new function never before seen in payment card systems: interchange. Because cardholders from one bank could now use their card to make purchases at merchants represented by a different bank, the two banks needed a way to clear and settle those transactions. In all previous payment card sys- tems, the same organization both issued the cards and represented the merchants, so all settlement and clearing was done within the same organization. Check payment systems had always experienced this scenario, and as discussed earlier, the Federal Reserve had established a national clearinghouse in 1915 for just this purpose. But in a move that may have perhaps sown the seeds of its own destruction, BASC chose not to create a centralized clearinghouse for the BankAmericard system. Instead, acquiring banks were required to mail their drafts directly to the issuing bank for payment, less a discount fee, now called the interchange reimbursement fee. This will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter, as it became one of the central reasons for the creation of a new independent organization. The banks that competed with the BankAmericard licensee banks quickly re- acted by forming regional, non-profit cooperative associations of their own. In many cases, these regional associations were also centralized processors. The members still issued cards, signed merchants and held the receivables, but the regional associ- ation provided the more mundane operational functions such as authorization, sales draft processing, accounting, and billing. By centralizing their operations, these as- sociations could also achieve an economy of scale, which reduced the operating costs for each of the members. These regional associations then joined together into a national, non-profit coop- erative association known as Interbank in order to allow their cards to be used across
the country. National merchant acceptance was hampered, however, by their lack of a common name on the card. Although all Interbank cards contained a common mark, it was only a small “i” in one corner of the card, barely noticeable compared to the regional association’s name and marks, which varied from region to region. In contrast to the BankAmericard system, which used and promoted a consistent name and mark, the Interbank system did not actively promote their common mark, and thus cards were not as readily accepted outside their issuing region. In 1969, Interbank began to address this problem by purchasing the rights to the name first developed by First National Bank of Louisville, Kentucky, and the mark popularized by the Western States Bankcard Association (WSBA).102 The name was “Master Charge” and the mark was the overlapping yellow and orange balls, and these were eventually used on all cards issued by Interbank members. In the 1980s, they changed names again to MasterCard and in 2006 became an independent, for- profit stock corporation.
The Bank of America issues BankAmericard in California and through its subsidiary, BankAmerica Service Corporation, licenses its use by banks in other states. The Bank of America had 2.6 million cardholders and approximately 80,000 participating merchants as of the end of 1967. Since June, 1967, the Bank of America has allowed other California banks to eee ticipate in its plan on a limited basis. The agency banks sign merchants and accept their sales drafts for forwarding to the Bank of America, but they do not issue credit cards in their own name. As of the moment, eight banks have joined this plan. Outside California, BankAmericard is available by license from BankAmerica Service Corporation. Licensee banks issue BankAmericard under their own name operating their own plan within their own area. In general they follow the Bank of America’s procedures and their cards are accepted by all licensee banks on a reciprocal basis. By March 1968 25 banks were licensees and many of these signed other banks as agents for their cards. A similar arrangement has been made with Barclays Bank whereby BankAmericard is accepted in Great Britain. However, because of British foreign exchange regulations, the Barclaycard cannot be used in the United States. Within California, BankAmericard has been in operation since