for travel-related expenses, such as airline tickets, car rentals, and hotel bills.
Debit cards have also been introduced in Britain. Debit cards provide no credit. In a debit card system that is not on-line, charge slips are deducted directly from the card holder's account when the charge slip is received by the issuing bank. In an on-line system, the amount of the charge is deducted from the card holder's account at the time of purchase. As a consequence, issuers accept lower credit risks than those demanded for credit cards.
The "gold card" concept has been introduced in Britain. The popularity of the concept in Britain, however, is far lower than that in the United States. Gold cards provide higher credit limits, more ancillary services, and lower interest rates than regular general purpose credit cards. As a accepted for regular general purpose credit cards.
The Barclaycard, which is a Visa card, also provides British card holder with an option not available to American card holders. A Barclaycard holder may be "in credit," which means that card holder may maintain a credit balance on their general purpose credit card account, on which they are paid interest.
In addition to franchising British banks to issue Master Card and Visa general purpose credit cards, American banks, in the late-1970s and early-1980s, began competing directly in the British credit card market. By the late-1980s, however, most of the American banks had pulled-out of the British credit card market.
The British credit card industry is dominated by Barclaycard and Access. The Barclaycard is issued by the Barclay Bank, and is a part of the international Visa system. The Access card is issued by National Westminster, Lloyd's Bank, and Midland Bank, and is a part of the international Master Card system. Girobank, a British institution, and Chase Manhattan of New York, also issue Visa cards in Britain.
Some British banks, notab...