History 1966–1972

From Britain’s first credit card to the launch of Access.

Before Access

It will probably not surprise you that the story of the Access card begins quite some time before its launch. Other plastic cards had been issued in the UK before – Finders Services in 1951, followed by Diners Club in 1962 and American Express in 1963 – but it was not until 1966 that the first UK credit card was launched. That was, of course, Barclaycard!

Barclaycard

A common misconception is that Barclaycard was a Visa product from the start. In fact, from 1966 the British Barclaycard was a licensed version of Bank of America’s BankAmericard. Bank of America gave up control of BankAmericard in 1970, and it was eventually rebranded as Visa when, in 1975, Barclaycard and the other licensees became the founding members of Visa. Barclaycard began to carry the Visa logo soon after.

It was not until 1967 that the Bank of England permitted “extended credit”. Until 8th November 1967¹, Barclaycard balances had to be settled in full when the bill arrived. From then on, revolving credit and minimum payments became available.

There is information online stating that when Barclays was about to launch Barclaycard, it invited other banks to share the set-up costs and use the platform for their own cards. None took it up, believing credit cards would not be a great success.

There are several ways to read that. One is that Barclays enjoyed a complete credit card monopoly until the launch of Access. Another is that the banks who launched Access simply waited, let Barclays take all the risk, and some years later launched what was effectively a cartel which couldn’t fail.

Access launches

Whichever way you see the preceding events, the next step was that on 26th November 1971 the name “Access” was registered as a trade mark. On 23rd October 1972 the Access credit card was publicly launched – see the newspaper report for details.

A House of Commons debate also places the launch in October 1972. The same debate mentions an MP’s letter of 15th April 1971 asking for Access to be referred to the Monopolies Commission – so clearly preparations for Access began long before its launch.

The banks that launched Access were Lloyds Bank, Midland Bank, National Westminster Bank and the Royal Bank of Scotland/Williams & Glyn’s group. They did so together through a new company called, aptly, The Joint Credit Card Company Limited. Lloyds, Midland and NatWest each owned 30% of JCCC, with the Royal Bank of Scotland/Williams & Glyn’s group owning the remaining 10%.

For shops, Access was not yet widespread in the second half of 1972, as the first H. Samuel advert below shows – but by 1973 things were changing.

Barclays history: “Launched on 29 June 1966, Barclaycard was the first all-purpose credit card scheme to be operated by a British bank.” ↩