● Credit card

That is to say, a narrow credit card is a payment card that provides consumer credit to cardholders. Cardholders can "buy first and settle later" without depositing in the issuing bank. The issuing bank sets a "credit limit" for each credit card account according to the customer's credit status and other conditions, such as $65,438+0,000 yuan. This means that cardholders can pay by credit card as long as the accumulated amount does not exceed $65,438+0,000 yuan. Generally, the issuing bank sends a bill to the cardholder once a month, and the cardholder can choose to pay off the account without paying interest within a certain grace period after receiving the bill; Either pay part of the bill, or only pay the minimum amount, and pay interest later. Since credit cards do not require deposits, credit card holders do not need to open a bank account with the issuing bank. This kind of credit card is the most widely used payment card at present, and its core features are credit sale and revolving credit.

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In fact, most credit cards in the United States today are issued by the issuing bank to cardholders who do not have the bank account. By the end of 2002, the total number of credit cards in the United States exceeded 600 million, and the annual transaction volume of credit cards exceeded 1.4 trillion US dollars.

● Semi-credit card.

Quasi-credit card is a unique credit card created in the process of developing credit card industry with China characteristics in order to adapt to China's political and economic system, social development level, people's consumption habits and other factors. This kind of credit card has some functions of credit card and debit card. Generally, it is necessary to pay a deposit or provide a guarantor. When using, use the deposit first and then consume, and the deposit pays interest. When shopping, you can make a small overdraft within the amount approved by the issuing bank, but the overdraft amount will bear interest from the date of overdraft. Its basic characteristics are transfer settlement and shopping consumption.

● Debit card

Corresponding to the "post-payment" of credit card is the "cash payment" of debit card. In order to obtain a debit card, the cardholder must open an account with the card issuer and keep a certain amount of deposit. When cardholders pay by debit card, the payment is directly transferred from their account in the issuing bank to the bank account of the merchant who sells or provides services. Therefore, the funds in the debit card actually come from the cardholder's checking account or current account (that is, current deposit account), and the payment amount of the debit card cannot exceed the deposit amount. In fact, for cardholders, there is no essential difference between the process of paying with a debit card and the process of withdrawing money directly from the bank and then paying in cash, but it is much more convenient to use a card. It can be said that debit card is just another more convenient form for consumers to pay cash or checks, so debit card is also called check card.

Link: By the end of 2002, there were about 654.38+75 billion debit cards in the United States, and the annual transaction volume of debit cards was nearly 500 billion dollars.