The first card

It was not until 1978 did Chinese have a chance to see what a credit card looked like.

One day in the autumn of 1978, a foreigner came to the office of Zhang Lianli, who then worked at the international business department of Bank of China (BOC).

"Why can't I use my credit card here? Why can't I withdraw cash?" the American traveler nervously asked Zhang, holding a card at hand.

It was the first time Zhang saw a bankcard. "What the hell is that? How can it be a substitute for cash?" Zhang was very curious about the little card.

Since the birth of the credit card in the United States in 1950, plastic cash quickly gained popularity outside of China and Zhang continually received queries from foreign travelers, about why they couldn't use the cards here.

He spent a month writing a report to his leader and a few months later, the top management of BOC decided to introduce a credit card.

In 1979, BOC's Guangdong branch signed a contract with Bank of East Asia (BEA), agreeing to use the BEA credit card on the mainland. Soon, three other branches of BOC in Shanghai, Nanjing, and Beijing signed similar contracts with overseas banks including BEA, HSBC and Standard & Chartered Bank.