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The concept of credit is not new. In ancient Egypt and Babylon more than 3,000 years ago merchants bartered with currency and services in order to maximize their spending processes, often collecting what we now call interest on payments that were late or past due. Credit cards themselves, however, didnt surface until the early 1950s.

American Express and the Diners Club were the forerunners in plastic money, and issued their first credit cards to fewer than 200 Americans for…