Credit Cards Trivia
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97 free Credit Cards trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This credit cards trivia quiz starts with the metal charge coins and Charga-Plates of the early 20th century, the Air Travel Card, the forgotten-wallet legend behind Diners Club and the 1958 Fresno mailing that launched BankAmericard and, eventually, Visa. It follows the birth of Master Charge, Barclaycard, Discover and the American Express Centurion card, and the unsolicited card drops that Congress finally banned in 1970. The second half is about how cards actually work: the standard size, the Luhn check digit, the security code on the back, the meaning of EMV, the difference between a charge card and a credit card, grace periods, interchange fees, cash advances and the consumer protections in the Credit CARD Act of 2009. Difficulty runs from easy to expert and is shown on every question. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. Try our credit unions and money quizzes next.
30 of 97 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Per company legend, what did Frank McNamara forget at a restaurant in 1949, inspiring Diners Club?
His wallet
Company legend says he found he had left his wallet behind while dining with clients in Manhattan; versions differ on how the bill got paid, and the firm's first press agent said it never happened at all.
Q 02Which hotel chain originated the Carte Blanche charge card?
Hilton
Hilton's own hotel card was renamed Carte Blanche in 1958; Citibank's forerunner bought it in 1966, was made to sell it by regulators two years later, and bought it back in 1978.
Q 03In which year did Diners Club introduce its first plastic card?
1961
Diners Club switched from cardboard to its first plastic card in 1961; the earliest cards had been printed on paper stock.
Q 04In which California city did Bank of America first test-launch BankAmericard?
Fresno
Fresno was chosen because about 45% of its residents already banked with Bank of America, enough cardholders from the first day to persuade local merchants to accept the card.
Q 05How did Bank of America distribute its first BankAmericards in 1958?
By unsolicited mail
By unsolicited mail: working cards simply turned up in the post, and other banks copied the tactic, sending out some 100 million across America before Congress outlawed it in 1970.
Q 06BankAmericard's launch cost Bank of America millions of dollars; what went so badly wrong?
Unpaid bills and fraud soared
Unpaid bills and fraud soared, and the bank lost millions; yet by May 1961 the card was in profit, a fact the bank kept quiet for years so that rivals would stay away.
Q 07In the 1970s the BankAmericard licensees around the world united under which single brand name?
Visa
Visa suited everyone: banks abroad had balked at putting an American bank's name on their cards, and the new word sounds much the same in every language.
Q 08Who was Visa's first CEO, the man who also coined its name?
Dee Hock
Dee Hock, a bank manager from Seattle, argued that no single bank should own a card network; the member-owned body he came to lead in 1970 became his model for what he called 'chaordic' organisations.
Q 09What was Mastercard called before it adopted its current name in 1979?
Master Charge
Master Charge was a name coined by a bank in Louisville, Kentucky; the Interbank group adopted it for its national card in 1969 and kept it for ten years.
Q 10What two colours are the overlapping circles of the Mastercard logo?
Red and yellow
Red and yellow circles are so widely recognised that in 2019 Mastercard dropped its own name from the logo and left the two discs to speak for themselves.
Q 11In which New York town is Mastercard headquartered?
Purchase
Purchase is said to owe its name to 'Harrison's Purchase', a tract a Quaker settler bought from Native Americans in 1695; the hamlet is also home to PepsiCo's headquarters.
Q 12What is Mastercard's long-running advertising tagline?
Priceless
'Priceless' has run since 1997 on one line: 'There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's Mastercard.' The word now also brands the firm's travel and city offers.
Q 13American Express was founded in 1850 in Buffalo, New York, as what kind of business?
A freight forwarding company
Q 21Which 1888 utopian novel by Edward Bellamy describes a concept it calls credit cards?
Looking Backward
Bellamy's Looking Backward (1888) uses the term 'credit card', though his cards work more like modern debit cards, drawing down each citizen's share of national output.
Q 22What sets a charge card apart from an ordinary credit card?
The bill is due in full
The bill is due in full each month, with no option to roll the debt over and pay interest; in return, most charge cards come with no preset spending limit.
Q 23The international standard that fixes the size of every credit card also defines the size of which far smaller card?
The SIM card
A freight forwarding company, moving parcels and valuables; when fellow directors refused to extend the business to California, founders Henry Wells and William Fargo set up Wells Fargo to do it.
Q 14Which product did American Express launch in 1891?
Traveller's cheque
The traveller's cheque came about after the firm's president returned from Europe fuming at how hard it was to cash letters of credit, and had his staff devise a cheque that needed only a matching second signature.
Q 15What is the invitation-only American Express card launched in 1999, nicknamed the 'black card'?
Centurion
The Centurion Card answered a rumour: talk of a secret black card for the elite had gone round for years, and in 1999 American Express decided to cash in on the story by making one.
Q 16Which retailer introduced the Discover card in 1985?
Sears
Sears, then America's largest retailer, wanted to sell financial services too; its Discover card undercut the banks by charging no annual fee and paying a little cash back.
Q 17The first Discover card sale, for $26.77 in September 1985, was rung up in which southern city?
Atlanta
Atlanta hosted the trial run; launched nationwide the next year, the card won customers from older rivals by charging no yearly fee and paying cash back on spending.
Q 18Which was the first credit card issued in the United Kingdom, launched in 1966?
Barclaycard
Barclaycard began as a British licensee of an American bank's card and had the market to itself for six years, until rival banks launched Access in 1972.
Q 19Which airline helped create the Air Travel Card in 1934, letting passengers buy now and pay later?
American Airlines
American Airlines and the Air Transport Association created the Air Travel Card in 1934; holders got a 15% discount, and by 1941 about half of airline revenues came through the scheme.
Q 20What does the 'APR' quoted on every credit card offer stand for?
Annual percentage rate
Annual percentage rate: card interest is worked out monthly or daily, but lenders must quote it as a yearly figure so that borrowers can compare one offer with another.
The SIM card began life at full credit-card size, and small SIMs were long supplied in a card-sized carrier to be snapped out; the same standard also sizes passport booklets.
Q 24What does the final numeral of a payment card number represent?
A Luhn check digit
The last digit is a Luhn check digit, worked out from all the others with a formula by IBM's Hans Peter Luhn; it catches mistyped numbers but gives no protection against fraud.
Q 25What do the first six or eight digits of a card number identify?
The issuer
The issuer is shown by these digits, known as the BIN; they come from a register kept by the American Bankers Association, and small card programmes often borrow a sponsor bank's BIN rather than get their own.
Q 26Which short-range wireless technology lets a smartphone pay with a tap at the till?
NFC
NFC, or near-field communication, reaches only about four centimetres, which is why the phone has to be held almost against the reader before anything happens.
Q 27Which IBM engineer devised the magnetic stripe card in 1960?
Forrest Parry
IBM engineer Forrest Parry devised the magnetic stripe card in 1960; the story goes that his wife suggested fixing the stripe to the plastic with a clothes iron.
Q 28Where does an American Express card carry its security code?
Four digits on the front
Four digits on the front, printed above the card number; Visa, Mastercard and Discover all use three digits on the back, beside the signature strip.
Q 29What must an online shop do with a card's security code after a sale?
Erase it
Erase it: the code is there to check online and phone orders, where no PIN can be keyed in, and card-industry rules bar shops from storing it once a payment is approved, so a stolen customer database is worth far less to a thief.
Q 30What do the letters EMV stand for?
Europay, Mastercard and Visa
Europay, Mastercard and Visa drew up the chip-card standard together; one of the three has since vanished, Europay having merged into Mastercard in 2002, but the letters stayed.