Happy birthday, Barclaycard – even if you turned out to be a ticking time-bomb

‘In years to come we shall be able to claim that we pioneered in this country the general everyday use of credit instead of cash,’ said an ad for Barclaycard shortly after its launch as the UK’s first mass-market credit card 50 years ago this month. In that first campaign, one million cards were sent out, unsolicited, to Barclays customers and others. ‘In a short time,’ the ad went on, ‘we hope that four million people will show their Barclaycard, sign the bill and pay us at the end of the month.’

Back in June 1966, any public debate that was not about England’s chances in the World Cup was highly likely to be about the merits or dangers of this financial novelty. On the plus side, it signalled the coming of the cashless and chequeless society. On the minus, thousands of unwanted cards might end up in the wrong hands, leading to an epidemic of fraud; some men joked that fraudsters would probably be less extravagant card-users than their own wives — while some wives took offence that their husbands had been sent cards but they had not.