Diners Club International - History

History

The first credit card charge was made on February 8, 1950, by Frank McNamara, Ralph Schneider and Matty Simmons at Major's Cabin Grill, a restaurant adjacent to their offices in the Empire State Building. McNamara was bought out two years later by department store heir Alfred Bloomingdale, who resigned several years later. Schneider died in the early 1960s. Simmons resigned in 1967 to form the publishing company that became National Lampoon. During that approximately 20-year period, these four men were the only major participants in the Diners Club operation.

Diners Club created what would later be dubbed the "travel and entertainment" (T&E) card market, which focused on frequent travelers with a substantial income to pay for other high-value charges. As these customers had no need to pay for purchases over time, these cards required that the entire balance of the bill be paid upon receipt. This type of account is known today as a charge card.

Diners Club's monopoly was short-lived, as American Express and Carte Blanche (which later partnered with Diners Club) began to compete with Diners Club in the T&E card market. American Express now dominates the "member card" arena, providing thousands of customers with cards that require the monthly balance to be paid in full.

Towards the end of the 1960s Diners Club also faced competition from banks that issued revolving credit cards through BankAmericard (later renamed Visa), and Interbank MasterCharge (later renamed MasterCard). Diners Club began early on to allow franchises of the Diners Club name, at first in Europe and later throughout the world, for many years eclipsing the BankAmericard or Interbank MasterCharge networks abroad. Amoco also issued for a time its own co-branded Diners Club cards called American Torch Club, and Sun Oil Company issued its version called Sun Diner Club Card.

In 1981, Citibank, a unit of Citigroup, acquired Diners Club International, the franchisor that holds rights to the Diners Club trademark, and many of the largest franchises worldwide. A majority of the abroad franchises remain independently owned.