Fresno shares credit for first card

Bank of America ran key test here 50 years ago.

Saturday, Nov. 01, 2008

Fifty years ago, Fresnans were among the first to try a new-fangled way of paying for shoes, prescription drugs and even cars.

Bank of America's BankAmericard, the first nationally accepted bank credit card, was tested in Fresno in 1958. It would blossom into the modern-day Visa, radically change the country's financial landscape and eventually lure many Americans into debt.

"Fifty years ago, a credit card that you could carry a balance on was a radical new concept," said Curtis Arnold, an author and credit expert who founded CardRatings.com, a consumer site that compares credit card deals. "It revolutionized in a fairly short amount of time how we pay for things."

Customers had the choice to pay the bill in full or over several months at 18% interest. They could add more charges along the way with the revolving credit function.

Many in Fresno remember the time vividly.

Bob Von said the BankAmericard is the reason his fledgling used-car business succeeded. Leo Weil said the little card came as a relief, lifting from his shoulders the responsibility of 1,000 in-store credit accounts at his family's clothing store. And Jo Ann Skoufis remembered her father, who helped pioneer BankAmericard, recruiting merchants by going door to door, dropping off applications and signs advertising the blue, gold and white card.

"Fresno residents can take pride in that fact that Visa more so than any other card has revolutionized how consumers [make transactions]," Arnold said. "It's a pretty big feat."

According to "Visa: The Power of an Idea," a book by Paul Chutkow about Visa's beginnings, Bank of America tested the card in Fresno because the bank had an unusually high market share here. And if it didn't work, news of the failure probably wouldn't reach the bigger urban markets of San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Fresno welcomed the card with open arms. An estimated 65,000 Fresnans had the card by late 1958 and 3,400 called the bank wanting it, according to Chutkow.

Before the BankAmericard, customers had to pay cash -- or get a bank loan -- to buy a refrigerator or car. Or they relied on credit accounts with individual retailers. Keeping track of such in-store credit accounts and collecting on them was a headache for some businesses. And customers didn't always like getting bills from so many different businesses in the mail.

Some charge cards existed at the time, such as the Diners Club and American Express. But the bills on those cards had to be paid in full each month, and were aimed at affluent customers, Arnold said. Other small banks around the country had attempted limited forms of credit cards, but weren't successful, said Bank of America spokeswoman Betty Riess.

"Visa became known as the card for the common person," Arnold said.

It grew nationally and internationally and Bank of America eventually gave up control. The company that issues the card became Visa in 1976 and went public last spring.

Starting up

Skoufis, of Fresno, whose father signed up merchants to use the card, was barely 3 years old at the time of the card's debut. She and her mother, Dorothy Skoufis, both remember thinking Frederic Skoufis was involved in something big.

Frederic Skoufis, a Bank of America employee in Kerman, was on the original committee that created the card, and his family remembers stories about heated debates over the card's appearance and the order of its blue, gold and white stripes. He died in 1993.

The family still has many of his documents. Consumer card applications asked for bank account information and credit accounts at stores. Promotional material featured women in pearls and proclaimed, "Carry your credit in your pocket."