credit (2024)

Buy now, pay later: that is the attraction of buying on credit. In a credit transaction goods, money, or services are given to the buyer in exchange for the promise to pay in the future not only the full cost of the goods, money, or services but also an extra charge—called interest—for the privilege of using credit.

Credit buying is used by individuals to buy houses, cars, appliances, furniture, vacations, clothing, and many other goods or services. It is used by businesses to expand their inventories, build new plants, or buy equipment. It is used by government to make up the difference between income from tax revenues and expenditures for operating costs.

To an ever-increasing extent the economic world has come to rely on credit. Manufacturing, transportation, commerce, agriculture, and construction could not exist on their present scale without credit. Banks operate almost entirely as dispensers of credit.

The giving of credit is basically the granting of a loan. The creditor—that is, the one who grants the credit—allows the debtor—the purchaser who uses the credit—to own and use a commodity immediately on the basis of deferred payment of cost plus interest. How the loan is granted varies. If one buys a car, one normally gets a direct loan from a financial institution. The buyer takes possession of the car and repays the loan, with interest, over a specified number of months. Meanwhile the financial institution retains legal ownership of the car until the loan is repaid. Buying a house, though a more complicated process, is quite similar.

In other kinds of credit buying there is no direct loan. When someone uses a credit card, or a charge card, to buy an item in a department store, for example, no money changes hands. The purchaser takes the goods home and is billed monthly until the cost is paid. This is an implied loan, and, like any other loan, in most cases the borrower must pay interest if repayment takes more than one month.

There are three general kinds of credit. Investment credit is the long-term borrowing of large amounts of money such as a corporation might need to build a new plant. Commercial credit is short-term borrowing such as a merchant might use to increase inventory just before the December buying season. Consumer credit may be either long-term, as in buying a house by means of a 15-, 20-, or 30-year mortgage, or short-term, as in buying appliances with a credit card.

There are many kinds of credit cards. Many stores, especially large department stores, issue their own cards to customers. There are a number of what might be called all-purpose cards; among these are the bank cards and the travel and entertainment cards. Visa and MasterCard are the best-known bank cards. They were originally issued only by banks, but by the early 1990s some cards were issued by corporations such as General Motors in conjunction with banks. The Discover Card, first issued by Sears, Roebuck, is similar to the bank cards. All are widely accepted in many countries for all kinds of purchases—even for paying fines and hospital bills.

Travel and entertainment cards are issued by the corporations that own them. The most prominent are American Express, Carte Blanche, and Diners Club. Originally intended for charging travel expenses and restaurant meals, they can now be used for many other kinds of purchases, such as for clothes.

Some oil companies, such as Amoco, Mobil, Shell, and Texaco, issue credit cards that can be used to charge gasoline, tires, batteries, and services offered by gas stations. There are also two systems that permit telephone calls to be made on credit. The older telephone credit system is used to charge calls to a home telephone when the caller is away from home: One simply dials the operator, gives the account number, and is allowed to make the call. The newer system uses a plastic card that has identifying codes. It can be inserted into specially equipped pay phones that record the call in the caller’s account for later billing and allow the caller to place a call without the use of change or cash.

For consumers, all credit cards work the same way. A customer makes a purchase and receives the bill in the mail within a month. For sellers, however, the payment arrangements vary. A department store may issue its own bills, and the customer sends in a check directly to the store. The bank cards and travel and entertainment cards work differently. The card issuers act as intermediaries between the seller and buyer. When a credit card is used to make a purchase, the seller sends a credit slip to the card issuer. The issuer pays the seller directly, after deducting a service charge, and the card issuer bills the customer. The card issuer profits from the service charge deducted from purchase prices, from interest charges on any amount not paid within a month, and, in many cases, from an annual fee charged to the buyer for the privilege of using the card.

Customers are normally allowed to pay for credit-card purchases in two ways: full payment within a grace period of about a month, for which there is no interest fee or carrying charge; or extended payments over a period of months, for which there are interest fees and carrying charges. The travel and entertainment cards demand full payment within a month of purchase except for the charging of airline tickets, cruises, and a few other types of purchases. When the repayment period is extended, it is called a revolving account. In a revolving account the customer is given a line of credit—that is, a maximum debt limit—and is required to make specified periodic payments in proportion to the size of the debt.

Competition has forced credit card companies to expand their benefits. Extended protection plans double the repair period under the original manufacturer’s warranty, and some plans credit the difference between the price charged and a lower advertised price for the same item. Purchases made on some cards are automatically covered for 90 days in case of loss, theft, damage, or fire.

Homes, automobiles, and large appliances are often purchased through a form of credit known as installment buying. In the years before credit cards became popular, installment buying was used for a wide variety of purchasing, even of low-cost items. The customer signed a purchase agreement with a store or other seller, paid a small amount of money called a down payment, took the item home, and made monthly payments directly to the store until the cost was paid. Some items, including encyclopedias, are still sold in this manner.

The store or other seller sometimes sells the purchase agreement to a finance company, which collects the monthly payments from the customer. If the payments are not made, the company may repossess, or take back, the item. When a long-term loan is made to buy a house, a mortgage is held by the creditor, usually a bank. A mortgage is a form of purchase agreement that enables the creditor to take possession of the house if there is a default in payment.

Some credit cards, especially those issued by department stores, can be used for installment buying. This is normally done for large purchases such as sets of furniture or major appliances. Payment is scheduled over a specific number of months, and each month’s payment, including interest charges, is the same. This contrasts with a revolving account, in which the payments decrease each month.

Before allowing a person to buy on credit, a merchant or a credit-card issuer finds out if the person can be expected to pay for what is bought. This is done by examining the person’s credit rating, which is an estimate of how much credit may be safely allowed him. Credit ratings are also reviewed by financial institutions before they make loans.

A credit rating is based on such factors as the person’s income, length of present employment, the number and amount of current debts, and the value of any assets, or things worth money, that can be put up as collateral. Collateral is property or other assets that the borrower pledges to the creditor should the borrower be unable to pay off the loan in the normal way. Primary collateral assets are an individual’s house and automobile. Once a good credit rating has been established, the best way to keep it is by making all payments on time.

The ratings are obtained from credit bureaus, privately operated agencies that keep information on persons to whom credit has been extended. Merchants and financial institutions may subscribe to the services on a regular basis or pay a fee for specific information.

The sources used by credit bureaus to arrive at a credit rating include any merchants who have granted the customer credit in the past, employment records, landlords, public records, and direct investigation. The development of automatic data-processing equipment has made it relatively easy to collect and distribute credit information on a nationwide basis. Merchants refusing to grant credit to an individual must supply the name and address of the credit bureau used, however, and the individual who is turned down has the right to know what information is on file.

Mercantile credit agencies gather and distribute information on the creditworthiness and financial strength of business firms and governments. The first such agency, the Mercantile Agency (now Dun & Bradstreet, Inc.), was founded in New York City in 1841 to reduce credit losses by companies. As businesses expanded from a local area to a national scale, many of them found it impossible to assess the creditworthiness of corporate customers everywhere on a firsthand basis. Institutions with low credit ratings are required to pay larger amounts of interest.

To cover loan risks and other contingencies, credit insurance has been developed. One common type is the debtor life insurance policy that is part of many mortgage contracts. If the debtor dies, the insurance company holding the policy pays the debt.

Merchandise credit insurance for domestic buyers and sellers is sold only to manufacturers, wholesalers, and certain service agencies but not to retailers; it enables the creditor to recover a certain percentage of losses should the debtor become bankrupt. Export credit insurance is available to exporters against losses from both commercial and political reverses. For example, the supply of a company’s imports from abroad could be cut off in time of war.